Posted by admin / Under Fisker Automotive
As taxpayer-backed electric car battery-maker A123 Systems reported a $125 million 1st quarter loss this week and its stock price dipped to near its 52-week low, the executives that were just awarded big raises and parachutes look like they want to cash in and sell the company. Officials with the Massachusetts-based manufacturer, which received a $249.1 million grant from theDepartment of Energy but this week said the ability for the company to continue is a “going concern,” also announced they retained an outside adviser for “evaluation of strategic alternatives.” Translation: they’re looking to sell. If they are successful, A123...
Published on Saturday 19th of May 2012 05:25:54 AM
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Posted by admin / Under Fisker Automotive
Photo shows the remains of 2012 Fisker Karma after a fire engulfed the vehicle last week. A $100,000 electric car is suspected in sparking a fire at a Sugar Land home last week, according to media reports. Fort Bend County chief fire investigator Robert Baker told AutoWeek that a newly purchased Fisker Karma sparked a fire that quickly spread to the rest of the home. “The Karma was the origin of the fire, but what exactly caused that we don’t know at this time,” Baker told the news outlet. According to his lawyers, Jeremy Gutierrez said his two-week old Karma...
Published on Saturday 19th of May 2012 05:25:54 AM
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Posted by admin / Under Fisker Automotive
Fisker Automotive has implied that the Texas owner of one of its Karma models committed “fraud” or “malicious intent” in blaming the luxury electric vehicle for his garage fire last week, after he had to rescue his wife, mother and child from flames that spread quickly to his house. The company’s claim could be a fatal public relations move, as the chief investigator in Fort Bend County Fire Marshal’s Office, Robert Baker, has also blamed the fire on the Karma. Fisker, recipient of $193 million (out of a $529 million total guarantee) loan backed by taxpayers via the Department...
Published on Saturday 19th of May 2012 05:25:54 AM
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Posted by admin / Under Fisker Automotive
Jobs: The same president who used stimulus dollars to build electric cars in Finland and sought to be Brazil's best oil customer now complains the GOP nominee built his career outsourcing jobs. At least he created some. President Obama's re-election campaign released an ad Tuesday saying Mitt Romney "shipped American jobs to places like Mexico and China" when he led the investment firm Bain Capital. The $780,000 ad buy in the key swing states of Ohio, Iowa and Virginia was in response to an ad by the free-market group Americans for Prosperity (AFP) noting the administration's penchant for wasting taxpayer...
Published on Saturday 19th of May 2012 05:25:54 AM
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Posted by admin / Under Fisker Automotive
Why are taxpayers forced to underwrite a loan for the producer of a $107,000 toy vehicle for the wealthy, the majority of which is assembled at a European auto plant? Two weeks ago Republican Sens. Charles Grassley of Iowa and John Thune of South Dakota askedEnergy Secretary Steven Chu those and some other pointed questions about his department’s decisions, in granting a $529 million taxpayer loan guarantee to Fisker Automotive, a luxury electric car manufacturer. The politically connected automaker has stumbled a number of times in delivering its six-figure Karma to market, with two recalls related to battery defects,...
Published on Saturday 19th of May 2012 05:25:54 AM
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Posted by admin / Under Fisker Automotive
A Los Angeles investment bank has been contracted by the U.S. Department of Energy to Anaheim-based Fisker Automotive Inc.’s fundraising efforts as it renegotiates a $529 million loan from the federal agency. The Energy department hired Houlihan Lokey after holding up additional installments of a loan it agreed to provide the make of luxury hybrid vehicles in September 2009, according to Bloomberg. (snip) Earlier this month Fisker Chief Executive Tom Lasorda raised some eyebrows when he said the Anaheim-based luxury automaker’s next model could be built outside the U.S. Fisker had planned production of its newly named Atlantic model at...
Published on Saturday 19th of May 2012 05:25:54 AM
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Posted by admin / Under Fisker Automotive
Green Energy: Another day and another set of layoffs at a Department of Energy-backed solar company and an electric-car maker funded with stimulus dollars. Yet the President wants to double down on green energy. First Solar, a solar energy company that received a $1.46 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy, announced Monday it will lay off 2,000 workers worldwide. In December, First Solar laid off 100 employees at a Santa Clara , Calif., plant. The DOE has committed the loan to a project in Riverside County, Calif., expected to create a whopping 15 permanent jobs and 550 construction...
Published on Saturday 19th of May 2012 05:25:54 AM
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Posted by admin / Under Fisker Automotive
Just as the Department of Energy gave A123 Systems a vote of confidence by extending a deadline until 2014 to spend down its $249 million stimulus grant, the deeply troubled electric vehicle supplier experienced another setback. One of their batteries caused an explosion. The blast occurred yesterday morning in Warren, Mich. at General Motors’ Alternative Energy Center – a research facility – while performing on an A123 battery “intensive tests designed to make it fail,” the Detroit News reported. GM confirmed to Crain’s Detroit Business that chemical gases released by the battery caused the explosion. One employee was sent...
Published on Saturday 19th of May 2012 05:25:54 AM
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Posted by admin / Under Fisker Automotive
A123 Systems – the taxpayer-funded electric vehicle battery manufacturer that famously shipped duds toFisker Automotive, which caused one of its luxurious Karma EVs toshut down just before aConsumer Reports test – is now the defendant in an investor class action lawsuit and its stock has tanked to below $1. Massachusetts-based A123received more than $279 million in grants from the Department of Energy, most of it used to refurbish two plants in Livonia and Romulus, Mich., for the production of EV batteries. The company laid off 125 factory workers in November, lost $257.7 million in 2011 (including an $11.6 million...
Published on Saturday 19th of May 2012 05:25:54 AM
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Posted by admin / Under Fisker Automotive
Complete title: Obama Administration Refuses to Release Milestones Missed by Fisker under Conditions of Auto Manufacturer’s $528.7 Million Government Loan Department of Energy Releases Blacked Out Records on “Green” Car Milestones (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch, the organization that investigates and fights government corruption, announced today that the Obama Department of Energy (DOE) refuses to release details regarding the milestones missed by the failing Fisker Automotive under the terms of its $528.7 million bailout loan from the DOE. In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed February 14, 2012, by Judicial Watch, the DOE released “in part”...
Published on Saturday 19th of May 2012 05:25:54 AM
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Posted by admin / Under Fisker Automotive
Automotive and green technology advocacy Web sites areabuzz with a story about a former employee of Fisker Automotive who claims the company released its $102,000-plus Karma electric sport sedan prematurely, in order to meet targets set forth by the Department of Energy so Fisker could access funds from a $529 million loan award. This followed reports from all over the Internet that Consumer Reports purchased a Karma in Connecticut for $107,850, only to see it totally disabled before the magazine could run it through its tests. The whistleblower story originated on the pro-Clean tech Web site Gigaom.com, and was...
Published on Saturday 19th of May 2012 05:25:54 AM
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Posted by admin / Under Fisker Automotive
Electric cars, which wouldn’t even be an option if taxpayers’ money wasn’t propping them up, don’t ultimately save money or cut down pollution. They aren’t reliable to get from here to there. But they can look nice, like the Fisker Karma. Speaking of which, we have this shall we say not entirely unexpected news, courtesy Reuters:...
Published on Saturday 19th of May 2012 05:25:54 AM
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