Green Fail: Taxpayers take $139 million haircut on failed Fisker Automotive loan

Wonderful...

Via the Daily Caller:

The Energy Department has sold off its $192 million loan guarantee to Fisker Automotive to Chinese billionaire Richard Li for $25 million — the biggest taxpayer loss on a green loan since the failure of Solyndra.

The Energy Department will announce the “selling of the promissory note” to Hybrid Tech, which is owned by Chinese billionaire Richard Li, according to sources familiar with the sale. The DOE sold the loan to Li for $25 million after lending the financially troubled green automaker a total of $192 million since 2009.[...}

Including the $25 million loan sale, the DOE has recovered only $53 million of the original $192 million disbursed — netting taxpayers a $139 million loss.

Ouch! Obama supported Fisker Automotive lost 557,000 every time it sold its product

In a double-slap of American taxpayers, Fisker made their cars in Finland...

Via Daily Caller:

Luxury hybrid car maker Fisker Automotive has spent $660,000 in taxpayer dollars and venture capital funds for each car it sold — totalling $1.3 billion, according to a report. The company’s Fisker Karma sold for about $103,000 per vehicle, meaning the company took a hit of $557,000 every time it sold its product.

The company was also allowed to continue to draw down on a $529 million Department of Energy loan after violating the loan’s term multiple times, according to a report by the New York-based research firm PrivCo.

According to the report, the Department of energy knew that Fisker was not meeting goal required to keep receiving taxpayer dollars. The DOE cut off funding to the company in June 2011, allowing taxpayers to lose $193 million.

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Green Fail: Fisker Automotive may never build a car in Delaware

 Looks like Fisker Automotive may take our $529 million and run.

Via AOL:

Last we heard, Fisker Automotive was still “committed” to building the recently revealed Atlantic sedan at the former General Motors plant in Delaware. A few years ago, Fisker announced that site would be the company’s new domestic production home (the Fisker Karma extended-range plug-in hybrid is made by Valmet in Finland). Still, Fisker did say that any definitive statement on the Atlantic’s production location would not come until the end of the summer.

So we were interested to read new reports from local media that show more signs that the Atlantic might not ever be built in Delaware. On Friday, Delaware Online reports, 12 more workers – including engineers and maintenance technicians – were laid off at the plant, leaving “only a small maintenance team” left there. One of those let go was Jeff Garland, who had been working on community affairs and business development efforts in Delaware. He said the plant is currently “absolutely empty.” This is because Fisker has taken out the old GM equipment but has not yet installed the machines it would need to build the Atlantic. As Garland told Delaware Online, “I think what happened was the budget numbers are so tight right now and they’re working so hard to preserve as much cash as they can that something had to give. We’re not making a car in Wilmington right now, so given that situation it was an obvious place to make a cut.

Green Fail: $100,000-plus Fisker sports car died during Consumer Reports speed testing this week

You are helping fund this debacle.

DETROIT — Remember when heartthrob Justin Bieber received a Fisker Karma luxury hybrid for his 18th birthday earlier this month on the Ellen DeGeneres Show? Well, he may be driving a lemon.

A $100,000-plus Fisker sports car died during Consumer Reports speed testing this week for reasons that are still unknown, leaving the struggling electric car startup with another blow to its image.

“It is a little disconcerting that you pay that amount of money for a car and it lasts basically 180 miles before going wrong,” David Champion, senior director for the magazine’s automotive test center, told Reuters, on Thursday.

But the breakdown of the Consumer Reports car is more bad news for a company that has found itself under the microscope as its woes have mounted.

Over the last month, Fisker changed its chief executive and halted work at its U.S. plant as it renegotiates the terms of a $529 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy.

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Green Fail: Fisker Automotive announces layoffs in U.S. Making cars in Finland.

President Obama gave Fisker Automotive a half billion clean energy loan. They subsequently announced they would build cars in Finland, not the U.S. Thy still had U.S. research operations, but now the layoffs begin. Oh, and they want more federal tax dollars from the Department of Energy.

(Politico) — In another setback for President Obama’s clean energy loan programs, the recipient of more than a half-billion dollars in federal loan guarantees is laying off workers at their Delaware and California operations.

Delaware’s News Journal reports that Fisker Automotive, a California-based electric car start-up company, is laying off an undisclosed number of staff to try to reserve enough capital in order to qualify for more federal help from the Department of Energy, according to a Delaware state development official.

“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.

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Green Fail: Fisker Automotive recalls electric lemons

Fisker Automotive is recalling the 2012 Karma luxury plug-in hybrid cars; all 239 of them. They are fire hazards. President Obama gave Fisker Automotive a half a billion loan of you tax dollars two years ago.

From the New York Times:

Fisker Automotive is recalling all 239 of its 2012 Karma luxury plug-in hybrid cars because of a fire hazard, according to a report filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Prices on the 2012 model start at $103,000, including the destination charge.

In a report filed recently on the agency’s Web site, Fisker said some hose clamps were not properly positioned, which could allow a coolant leak. “If coolant enters the battery compartment an electrical short could possibly occur, causing a thermal event within the battery, including a possible fire in the worse case,” the company told the safety agency.

Fisker said the problem was discovered on Dec. 16, when workers at the Valmet Automotive assembly plant in Finland noticed coolant dripping. Fisker said it was not aware of any consumer complaints, warranty claims or “any other reports related to this condition.” It said fewer than 50 vehicles were in the hands of consumers.