Seattle is preparing for an electric car roll-out that could amount to 200,000 electric vehicles on the road by 2030.

Ford Motor company and the City of Seattle announced Thursday that they will work together to develop consumer outreach and education programs on electric vehicles as well as share information on ensuring the electrical grid can support the anticipated demand.

Company executives arrived from Dearborn, Michigan with a bright orange Ford Focus Electric passenger car prototype, one of only three in the world, that silently and efficiently navigates the streets without emitting pollutants of any kind.

Since Seattle runs on 90 percent hydroelectric power, the electricity needed to charge the car’s lithium-ion battery is generated with a minimum of climate-changing fossil fuels.

That is important to Seattle’s new mayor, Mike McGinn, who rides his pedal-electric bike to work most days.

At an electric car forum hosted by Ford Thursday, the mayor told participants, “We all recognize that we have to make significant changes in the amount of fossil fuel we use if we hope to reduce the amount of global warming, the pollution we put out and attempt to avert really negative effects of climate change.”

McGinn said reducing fossil fuel use will require many changes such as conserving driving distances by developing mixed-use neighborhoods, using cleaner fuels and alternate means of transportation – electric cars, bikes, walking and public transit.

“I think we’re starting to look at the transportation sector the way we used to look at our electricity sector in looking at how can we conserve and how can we use less,” he said.