Gore-Backed Car Firm Gets Large U.S. Loan. Piece of shit only runs 50 miles on a charge!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125383160812639013.html

WASHINGTON -- 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. Tesla
is a California startup focusing on all-electric vehicles, with
a number of celebrity endorsements that is backed by investors
that have contributed to Democratic campaigns.

The awards to Fisker and Tesla have prompted concern from
companies that have had their bids for loans rejected, and
criticism from groups that question why vehicles aimed at the
wealthiest customers are getting loans subsidized by taxpayers.

"This is not for average Americans," said Leslie Paige, a
spokeswoman for Citizens Against Government Waste, an anti-tax
group in Washington. "This is for people to put something in
their driveway that is a conversation piece. It's status symbol
thing."

DOE officials spent months working with Fisker on its
application, touring its Irvine, Calif., and Pontiac, Mich.,
facilities and test-driving prototypes.

Matt Rogers, who oversees the department's loan programs as a
senior adviser to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, said Fisker was
awarded the loan after a "detailed technical review" that
concluded the company could eventually deliver a highly fuel-
efficient hybrid car to a mass audience. Fisker said most of its
DOE loan will be used to finance U.S. production of a $40,000
family sedan that has yet to be designed.

"It's the ability to drive significant change in fuel economy
across a large market segment" that swayed the department to
approve the Fisker loan, Mr. Rogers said. "We got quite excited."

Henrik Fisker, who designed cars for BMW, Aston Martin and Tesla
before starting his Fisker Automotive in 2007, said his goal is
to build the first plug-in electric hybrids that won't sacrifice
the luxury, performance and looks of traditional gas-powered
luxury cars.

The Karma will target an exclusive audience -- Gore was one of
the first to sign up for one. Mr. Fisker says all new technology
starts out being expensive. He pointed to flat-screen
televisions that once started at $25,000 but are now affordable
to the mass market.

The four-door Karma, powered by a lithium-ion battery, will be
able to run solely on electric power for 50 miles, and will
achieve an average fuel economy of 100 mpg over the span of a
year, the company says. Production is scheduled to start in
December, with about 15,000 vehicles a year expected to hit the
U.S. market starting next June.

Many of the 1,500 people who have made deposits on the Karma are
former BMW and Mercedes owners who want an environmentally
friendly car without sacrificing luxury, Mr. Fisker said.

He said he pitched the Karma to Mr. Gore at an event hosted by
KPCB last year, and that the former vice president almost
immediately submitted a down payment for the car.

Kalee Kreider, a spokeswoman for Mr. Gore, confirmed that the
former vice president backs Fisker and purchased a Karma. "He
believes that a global shift of the automobile fleet toward
electric vehicles, accompanying a shift toward renewable-energy
generation, represents an important part of a sensible strategy
for solving the climate crisis," she said in a statement.

Fisker's top investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers,
a veteran Silicon Valley venture-capital firm of which Gore is a
partner. Employees of KPCB have donated more than $2.2 million
to political campaigns, mostly for Democrats, including
President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, according to the
Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks
campaign contributions.

Officials at Kleiner Perkins didn't return requests for comment.

Asked whether Mr. Gore had any influence on Fisker's
application, the DOE's Rogers said, "None at all."

"This is a very attractive, very across-party-lines kind of
vehicle," Mr. Rogers said. "All of the detailed due diligence
[was] done by independent review teams."

Other Fisker investors include Eco-Drive (Capital) Partners LLC,
an investment consortium, and Qatar Investment Authority, a
state-run investor based in Qatar.

Fisker's government loans will come from a $25 billion program
established by Congress in 2007 to help auto makers invest in
the technology to meet a new congressional mandate to improve
fuel efficiency. In June, the DOE awarded the first $8 billion
from the program to Ford Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co., and Tesla,
which are all developing electric cars.

Some companies that have been turned down for loans from DOE say
they did not get much feedback from the department about their
applications. O. John Coletti, president of EcoMotors
International of Troy, Mich., said his company applied for a $20
million loan from the agency last December, and last month got a
one-page rejection letter from the loan program's director,
Lachlan Seward. EcoMotors' lead investor is Vinod Khosla,
himself a former Kleiner Perkins partner and a longtime campaign
contributor to Republicans and Democrats alike.

"I don't have an issue with the winners … it's possible somebody
has better ideas than us," Mr. Coletti said. At the same time,
he said, "More feedback from DOE on a timely basis would be
wonderful. When you're running a business you'd like to know
whether you're going to be able to take advantage of this
opportunity."

Mr. Coletti's company -- which makes diesel engines and is still
waiting to hear from the Department on a separate loan
application to help it build a manufacturing facility -- isn't
without politically well-connected patrons, either. Its major
investor is Vinod Khosla, himself a former Kleiner Perkins
partner who has donated to campaigns.

Scott Redmond, CEO of XP Vehicles Inc., said he met with DOE
officials twice in Washington after applying for a $40 million
loan to develop a $15,000 to $25,000 hybrid, and that both times
he was told his application looked good. Since receiving a
rejection letter from DOE in August, Redmond said, he has been
unable to get a full explanation as to why his request was
turned down.

Mr. Rogers said he was not at liberty to discuss individual
applications that had been turned down, but said the process has
been handled fairly and objectively.

 

Hah! When you're a Democrat, it's different (borrowing a phrase from
Jim Quinn). Elitism in its highest form.

Oh boy. Here we go with the b.s. numbers. So it gets 100 mpg. So
let's ignore the electric bill, eh? Numbers like that are meaningless
unless you're telling the whole story, which of course they never do.
Problem is that our politicians (and the general public that is into
this sort of thing) don't have enough brains to know when they are only
being told less than half the story when it comes to technology - hence
they believe in "global warming" (oh - excuse me - "climate change" - I
keep forgetting that they have quit saying "global warming" now that
even idiots can't ignore the fact that things are actually cooling off)
and things like this *new* Al Gore debacle.

 

So where's the fucking solution YOU'VE come up with, asshole?
WS

 

Over half a billion dollars for another Gore scam... Gore, the
environmental disastar beyond belief! And, no that half billion will
never be repaid!

 

Well thought out and cohernt reply...

 

nice response.....

 

How much does a gallon of electricity cost, Bill ;>)

 

ROTFLMAO!

 

Right. like he has to have a solution to know this one isn't it. I don't
have a solution to fix what's wrong in Washington D.C., but I know THAT
ain't right :-{

 

Geez - Why the personal hostility?

Tell me what the problem is first, then I'll tell you a solution that
really works, not just some feel-good .

Doing stuff that causes more harm than the problem you're claiming to be
fixing and using meaningless "data" to sell it sure isn't the answer.

 

Umm - about the same as a kWhr of gasoline?

 

http://www.fiskercarforum.com/?p=363

Anybody should know better than to depend on the Rupert Murdoch-owned
WSJ as their source.

 

Gore is a partner in a firm which invested in Fisker. Your rant about
Gore is stupid, and that's being polite.

 

what.....about 10 lbs of coal or a spoon full of uranium depending your
electric plant?

 

Back at ya' Hoss.
WS

 

As of 9/25, coal costs $52.30 per ton, call it 30 cents for your 10
pound bag of coal. The waste product can be used for roads or
construction materials. Burn and done. We're talking coal, not
municipal trash.

U308 reactor fuel averages about $44-69 per pound, but costs
$700 per pound to reprocess. Direct disposal would be about half that
figure, but it does not include long term storage costs, monitoring, or
repackaging if the container eventually fails, as it will with all
nuclear waste storage.

The United States does not reprocess spent fuel as they do in Europe.
Reprosessing or direct disposal still carries the same long term storage
costs etc. According to the DOE, the cost of reprocessing the estimated
2200 metric tons of spent fuel per year in the US alone would exceed $5
billion. Again, keep in mind that there are additional costs etc.

Currently, the over 430 active reactors in the world consume 176,000,000
pounds of U308 per year. Spent fuel is the most radioactive of all waste
materials and may have to be stored for hundreds or thousands of years
using current methods.

 

Boy this guy really knows how to make a convincing argument. Two posts
in a row.

 

he must be a GM driver

 

With significant litary content, too!

 

Gore is not stupid. He is GENIUS. And,alas, very CROOKED. . He has
learned how to take an imaginery "event", global wamring,(or in the
year 2009, "climate change"), and turn it into a source of vast income
for him. Whether it is in recieving millions in government grants,
raking in tens of millions in stocks of "green" companies, or the
200,000 dollars a pop he comands for speaking engagements, all the
while jet-setting the planet in his evil, carbon spewing private
plane, he just keeps getting richer and richer.


I only wish I were as smart as he.


But glad I AM a little more honest.