Henrik Fisker says production of the Fisker Karma is not dependent on Dept of Energy loans, and that the company is pursuing a “plan B” to fund the company independently from private investors to prevent the company from being a political football.
In early February, Fisker Automotive laid off a few workers following a suspension of the Dept of Energy loans to that company. This has touched off punditocratic furies likening Fisker’s impending demise with last summer’s sudden collapse of Solyndra, and predictions that when Fisker dies so too will lithium battery manufacturer A123 Systems, because of course the whole Obama green tech vision was a disaster from the start. But, wait, says Fisker spokesperson Roger Ormisher, this talk of Fisker’s corporate death is overblown, and the DoE loan issue is just a bump in the road.
Fisker, launched in 2007 by famed car designer Henrik Fisker, recently launched their first car, a luxury plug-in hybrid named the Karma. Their second plug-in hybrid car, Project Nina, was to have gone into production later this year except for the “speed bump” in the form of the Dept of Energy loan suspension. Fisker received approval for up to $527 million of loans in the 2009 Department of Energy loan program that was meant to launch a U.S. electric car industry, and the company has pulled down $193 million from that loan while raising $850 million in private capital. The loan suspension was due to Fisker having missed business development milestones specified in the loan contract, and those missed milestones were responsible for the repeated delivery delays for the Karma. Because of the loan suspension, Fisker laid off 26 of the 100 workers refurbishing the GM plant in Delaware, and laid off another 40-45 workers at its California headquarters, and the company still employs hundreds of people.
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