Fisker Automotive is another recipient of President Obama’s “green” subsidies. The cars they make cost more than $100,000 and they’re manufactured in Finland, even though the auto company is based in the US. According to Politico, they’re laying off an “undisclosed number of employees.”
“They’re trying to preserve the cash that they have,” said Alan Levin told the News Journal. “And unfortunately, until they meet the milestone that DOE continues to set … they’re not able to access the additional capital that they need.”
The company also came under fire last year for taking federal loans while producing cars in Finland. Company officials told ABC News at the time that “there was no contract manufacturer in the U.S. that could actually produce our vehicle.” The company was working on reopening a shuttered General Motors plant in Wilmington to produce vehicles — an effort that top Obama administration officials lauded.
“While some wanted to write off America’s auto industry, we said no. We knew that we needed to do something different – in Delaware and all across the nation,” Vice President Joe Biden said about Fisker in Delaware in 2009. “We understood a new chapter had to be written, a new chapter in which we strengthen American manufacturing by investing in innovation. Thanks to a real commitment by this Administration, loans from the Department of Energy, the creativity of U.S. companies and the tenacity of great state partners like Delaware – we’re on our way to helping America’s auto industry reclaim its top position in the global market.”
“This is proof positive that our efforts to create new jobs, invest in a clean energy economy and reduce carbon pollution are working,” said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. “We are putting Americans back to work and reigniting a new Industrial Revolution that is paramount for the economic success of this country.”
The company received $529 million in loans to produce two lines of plug-in hybrid cars. (Read More)
I’d say this is “proof positive” that Obama’s wasteful spending has to come to an end. Good grief.
Update: Linked by Scared Monkeys – thanks!
Update: Via David in the comments below, Torque News has more details, including the number of laid off workers in Delaware and California.
Yet another green plan tethered by the incompetence of DOE loan makers! The need for alternative energy cars is real, but such technology requires venture capital, strong research and development programs, and consumer feedback to work. Just handing out cash doesn’t work, it is divided as bonus money and the true work of development is left on the floor of the boardroom!
“Thus says the King” is insufficient for a sustainable spurt in green energy programs the will succeed economically!
Stop the stimulus train wreck now!
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The green energy strategy for success:
“If we can just get enough money, we’ll make it all work!”
The green energy excuse for failure:
“We needed more money!”
The idiots believe that enough money will bring about the creation of new technologies and will magicly bring forth new, problem-solving inventions. What they seem to never understand is that todays engineers were not taught to think or to use logic. Instead, they were taught the last generation’s methods and ideas.
With an education like that, they are assured failure.
Give one of today’s graduate engineers the finest in laboratoriws and equipment, an endless supply of money, and all heshe will do is repeat what has been accomplished before, just with fancier and more expensive methods and equipment.
Solyndra is a classis example. They built themselves the finest, newest, neatest, most modernest manufacturing facility ever, stocked it with the newest, fastest and most expensive computer systems available, hired the brightest and best from the most prestigious institutions of learning anywhere, and what happened?
Nothing.
All that money and equipment meant nothing. All they could do was buld the same old stuff based on the same old technology at six times the price.
You can’t buy invention. You can’t learn new methods or n ew ideaS in college. And all the money in the world will not change that.
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[...] who could have predicted that this would have been a waste of tax payer money? After all, as the Lonely Conservative reminds us the electric car goes for such a paltry cost of [...]
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The Politico piece was pretty short on facts. There is plenty of reporting out there about this particular layoff, with specific numbers of people laid off. This article is fairly comprehensive: http://www.torquenews.com/1075/fisker-automotive-lays-workers-after-dept-energy-freezes-loans
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