Fisker Automotive Gets $529 Million Government Loan To Build Electric Cars

Wall Street Journal:

A tiny car company backed by former Vice President Al Gore has just gotten a $529 million U.S. government loan to help build a hybrid sports car in Finland that will sell for about $89,000.

The award this week to California startup Fisker Automotive Inc. follows a $465 million government loan to Tesla Motors Inc., purveyors of a $109,000 British-built electric Roadster.

Read the whole story: Wall Street Journal

Comments

[ohiomark]

10:42 PM on 09/29/2009

So, not only is Al "P.T. Barnum" Gore scamming dumb Libs out of their money by selling them "carbon credits", now he's scamming money from the Federal Government to subsidize his car company that can't make it on it's own.

[PuzzledinPeoria]

05:33 PM on 09/29/2009

That whooshing sound you hear is Al Gore's credibility going bye-bye.

[DannyGee]

02:13 PM on 09/29/2009

If this was a good investment there would have been people lined up to invest.

[BorseGermany]

10:32 AM on 09/29/2009

more proof that we the little ppl get scr3w3d every time

good articles; http://www.iamned.com

[RomeoMD25]

03:20 AM on 09/29/2009

“The “privately-owned” Chicago Climate Exchange is heavily influenced by Obama cohorts Al Gore and Maurice Strong.

For years now Strong and Gore have been cashing in on that lucrative cottage industry known as man-made global warming.

Strong is on the board of directors of the Chicago Climate Exchange, Wikipedia-described as “the world’s first and North America’s only legally binding greenhouse gas emission registry reduction system for emission sources and offset projects in North America and Brazil.”

Gore, self-proclaimed Patron Saint of the Environment, buys his carbon off-sets from himself–the Generation Investment Management LLP, “an independent, private, owner-managed partnership established in 2004 with offices in London and Washington, D.C., of which he is both chairman and founding partner. The Generation Investment Management business has considerable influence over the major carbon credit trading firms that currently exist, including the Chicago Climate Exchange.”

[BrickSykes]

07:30 PM on 09/29/2009

Look...Has it ever crossed your mind that the Obama Administration might be trying to put together some plans for improving the lives of ALL Americans? It sure doesn't sound like it. Or maybe you're reluctant to climb aboard this shaky train of state; for some reason the economy we've been used to has changed to where there's a lot of tension in the air. You guys don't happen to know anything about that situation, do you? It sure would be nice to hear from ALL Americans wouldn't it?

But just look! This article is about the new green cars and some of the people who are trying to make them. But what do we hear from the RepugniKon Noise Machine? Well, looky here! Al Gore is wealthy and where did he get all that money? (Same place GWBush got his!) So the focus is off the energy efficient cars and is now on "PROGRESSIVES" or "LIBERALS!" and none of us can afford to do anything they're thinking about. They've got to be stopped! And they Hate Christ and Billy Graham, too! What'll we do?

ALL Americans must get back to an open dialog with each other again. If we're led to continue living with this chasm that's been dug between us it could be very unfortunate for ALL of us!

Thanks

Brick

[loki]

01:42 AM on 09/29/2009

fantastic , tax payer money given to build a car that most could never dream of affording!!
built in Finland nonetheless. Great use of American tax dollars Id say. Oh well, it still beats giving it to wealthy bankers on Wall street, but not by much.

[Waltb31]

02:44 AM on 09/29/2009

Pathetic.
This is an AMERICAN company that will be using the loan on their new car built in the US.
You Faux noise types are dense.

[Alvarask]

09:18 PM on 09/28/2009

In fact, most of work related to the loans will be conducted in the U.S.

Fisker's Project Nina will be assembled "in the U.S." The September 22 DOE press release states that 68 percent of the Fisker loan will be used "for Fisker's Project Nina, involving the manufacture of a plug-in hybrid in the U.S. Fisker estimates that up to 75,000-100,000 of these highly efficient vehicles will roll off assembly lines in the U.S. every year beginning in late 2012." The press release states that with regard to the remaining funds -- which will be used for the production of the more expensive Fisker Karma -- that the engineering work "will be conducted at Fisker's Pontiac, Michigan office with support from its headquarters in Irvine, California," and that "[w]hile the final assembly of the Karma will be done overseas, more than 65 percent (based on cost) of the parts required for Karma will come from U.S. suppliers." DOE has concluded that "[t]he combined projects are anticipated to create thousands of jobs in the U.S. and provide substantial support for domestic parts suppliers saving or creating approximately 5,000 jobs." Henrik Fisker, CEO of Fisker Automotive, has reportedly "said that the current Karma would stay in Finland, but its successor could be built in the United States with the Nina vehicle (which will appear in late 2012)."

[whatbox]

08:58 PM on 09/28/2009

Tesla clarifies the purpose and conditions of the DOE loan:

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog2/?p=74

[whatbox]

08:40 PM on 09/28/2009

Mediamatters.org is reporting that Fox News is spreading similar misinformation about the DOE loans to Fisker & Tesla.

http://mediamatters.org/research/200909280033

Guess what? Fox & The WSJ are both owned by Rupert Murdoch... You connect the dots.

[econ1]

07:13 PM on 09/28/2009

It is great to have friends in this government and a real problem if you don't.

A $500 million loan to Al's company isn't huge in the current environment but it is a bit like a subprime loan to a friend. The company will spend the money and if it works, Al will make a ton. If it doesn't, Al will drive off in one of the cars and the taxpayers will eat the loss.

Think about how Ford felt (feels) having the government bail out two of its' competitors and then provide them money to do inexpensive loans. Government is now picking the winners and not by what might be the best technology but by who they want to promote.

Lobbying is going to experience an explosive growth period.

[dc2nm]

10:08 AM on 09/29/2009

Backed does not equal owned. Backed usually equals investor. We have investors in our company and they don't make tons more than the typical loan repayment rate.

[rbchilds]

05:22 PM on 09/28/2009

Electric cars are a good thing.
Giving American Taxpayers money to a company to build extravagant cars in a foreign country is not.

Why not require the manufacturing plant to be located in the US and hire Americans? I'm sure there are lots of folks in Michigan with the qualifications to assist in this project.

Everyone should be outraged, this type of stupidity of our government needs to stop. Americans are unemployed, they need jobs NOW, but what does the government do, send the money overseas. Not only are companies sending jobs abroad, we now have a government that is facilitating the mess.

Yea, I know it's Bush's fault, right.

[Waltb31]

07:47 PM on 09/28/2009

Where were you when Bush/Cheney were sending money overseas to the Iraq oil war and to Halliburton/KBR?
Yes it IS Bush's fault we are in this mess.

[rbchilds]

10:04 PM on 09/28/2009

Both parties got us into this mess, no doubt about it. I did, have and will continue to criticize bumbling Bush for what he did, but I do believe he gets blamed for things that were not in his control. I also believe that Democrats, Republicans and all politicians have a attention span of about 30 days at which time they will invent another issue to deflect the prior.

In my lifetime there has been 3 unconstitutional wars, 2 by the Democrats and 1 by the Republicans. My question to you, if you are old enough to understand, where were you when the Democrats were doing the same thing?

[Pru]

11:22 AM on 09/29/2009

Great majority of the work and money are going to the U.S.A. Don't know what you mean by "extravagant", but a tiny percentage of the cars will be sports cars. I guess the WSJ accidentally left some facts out of their reporting.

http://www.energy.gov/news2009/8050.htm

[rbchilds]

03:10 PM on 09/30/2009

Extravagant = $89,000 for automobile.

[takeusaback]

04:31 PM on 09/28/2009

After all the money that was awarded to Haliburton and other insiders companies or former compainies, why is this news?

At least this isn't some no bid rip off for services never rendered!

It seems there are two standard one for Republicans and one for Democrats.

If a Republican does something, it is above reproach. Not a thing wrong with it. Perfectly above board.

But, if a Democrat does EXACTLY the same thing it's shameful, disgraceful,. illegal or immoral.

If something is wrong or right, it is wrong or right no matter what party you belong to.

This double standard is what allows the Republican faithful to worship their members of congress while calling for the Democrats resignation or criminal charges for exactly the same actions (or inaction)

It's the standard that allowed Jimmie and Tammie Faye to shed a few tears, streak a little make up and be totally absolved of any wrong doing for stealing from their Charity/ religious (sic) foundation.

They should still be behind bars.

Denny Hastert should be behind bars. Newt Gingrich should be doing at least 50 years.
And the list goes on and on...........

But no, lets go after Al Gore. A man with more integrity than all of the Republicans in congress put together!

[fuelcell]

05:18 PM on 09/28/2009

I wouldn't care if al gore owned the company and it gave obama $100,000,000 for his next campaign. I'm upset that I didn't even need to read the article to know this was going to be the DOE throwing every last penny into Li ion. I've been dependent on DOE funding for fuel cell research for the last two years. The group has been getting funding there for years (~million/year). This year we've watched alot of good research stopped because of the big sucking sound coming from steven chu dragging everything over to Li ion. A curious person might want to know why. And Mr. Colletti might want to know that lobbyists can't help you here. You have to know somebody. I s*** you not.

[whatbox]

08:14 PM on 09/28/2009

I read in one of your posts that you are a grad student involved in fuel cell research, so I have to ask, have you ever worked through the thermodynamics of a H2 fuel cell vehicle's well-to-wheel efficiency? I think that you will find, if you compare it to BEV efficiency, that BEVs are almost 2x as efficient as HFCVs. That is why Chu and the DOE are not too enthusiastic about fuel cells.

Here is an engineering white paper from Tesla Motors that supports this position:

http://energy.wesrch.com/paper_details/pdf/TR1SVV3O7X124/21st_century_electric_car

[WeeklyKos]

03:32 PM on 09/28/2009

Amerika continues to be run by corporate interests

good articles; http://www.iamned.com

the worst thing is there's nothing we can do about it

[fuelcell]

04:18 PM on 09/28/2009

what does the "k" in "amerika" stand for?

[ResidualSelfImage]

03:12 PM on 09/28/2009

Hydrogen AGGLOMERATES (clumps together) when it sits. Thats why hydrogen cars dont run right.

Make hydroxy gas from water it doesnt clupm and can be run in any prpane appliance and stored in a ny propane tank..
You can run your car on hydroxy gas using a propane adapter.

[fuelcell]

04:18 PM on 09/28/2009

I hope everyone sees the first sentence of your post, realizes you have no idea what you're talking about and moves on. Clumpy hydrogen gas... LMAO.

[DontJustFollow]

03:10 PM on 09/28/2009

With Al Gore's first brilliant money maker "Global Warming" and then the re-duex "Climate Change" and now "Electric Cars for the Rich and Guilty" - - - This guy is going to be the next Warren Buffet -

It doesn't say if Gore got any action on the Tesla deal, but you can bet he took home at least 10% on the Fisker deal - - - -

You gotta ask where is at least the Faux anger from the left over the taxpayer funded deal to send jobs to Finland. When Obama campaigned on fining US companies that sent jobs over seas, I wonder if he also agreed to have the US taxpayers give them the money to pay the fines - - -

Maybe there just aren't any union autoworkers able to make electric cars ?

Can you imagine the outrage if a republican President funded this deal for Cheney ?