Federal Government to offer bailout to Japanese automaker Nissan to produce cars in Japan.

[Romulox]

Source: AP

AP source: Ford, Nissan, Tesla to get govt loans

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Energy Department is lending money to the Ford Motor Co. and two other automakers from a $25 billion fund to develop fuel-efficient vehicles, congressional officials say.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu was scheduled to announce the loan funding for Ford, Nissan Motor Co. and Tesla Motors Inc. on Tuesday in Dearborn, Mich., the officials said. They requested anonymity because an official announcement was pending...

Nissan is developing an all-electric car with 100 miles of pure battery range for release in late 2010. The car will be made in Japan initially but company officials have said they eventually want to build the vehicle at Nissan's plant in Smyrna, Tenn

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g6oX6lRgmi3TpK7RPDQSTaQWSYpgD990B18O1

---

Not content with bailout out foreign banks and insurance companies, our Congress is now bailing out foreign automakers to assist in their plans in building cars in Japan. Unbelievable.

[Cass]

1. Omg, what is wrong with these people?? Are they that dense?

This is unbelievable. These jobs are so desperately needed in this country, especially in Michigan. Why should taxpayers be expected to fund a loan that promotes jobs overseas?

:grr:

[tomm2thumbs]

2. I think we've come full circle - now we are the Japanese and they are the U.S.

We have to let them come up with all the technology and we go in later and copy it and produce it in the U.S. Sad state of affairs when it used to be the other way around and the Japanese car makers were coming to the U.S. to see what innovations our industry had and then taking notes on them, improving them and building them there with all the new ideas. I'm sure I am over-reaching, but it does sound somewhat similar.

[ohtransplant]

3. This should be obvious.

These funds should be for creating and protecting American jobs. Now.

[madmom]

4. To announce this in Michigan is quite a slap in the face to the many unemployed there IMO.

[WriteDown]

7. Didn't you know?

Those MI workers can be retrained. :sarcasm:

[dysfunctional press]

11. as part of the vibrant lint-brush industry in flint?

that was one of my favorite scenes from micheal moore's flick.

[WriteDown]

5. Makes sense...

As many DU posters point out, Americans are not capable of building cars that rival their Japanese counterparts. :eyes:

[WriteDown]

6. self-delete

wrong spot

[ReverendDeuce]

15. That's just downright snarky...

Nobody has said that.

What IS being said is that American COMPANIES are not WILLING to build cars that rival their Japanese counterparts.

American style capitalism's motto is: build the lowest quality of product that the marketplace will tolerate at the highest profit margin possible.

That's what got GM and Chrysler into this bind. They gambled and pushed the envelope, too far, and the marketplace spoke.

I have a four year old Nissan-made Infiniti M45 with 50,000 miles on it. The paint is still perfect, the seats show no real sign of wear, the interior is rattle and squeak free, everything still works, and it feels exactly like it was when it was new.

Now, show me an American car that can do the same.

Prior to going with the Infiniti, I had two Jeep Grand Cherokees in a row. One had its first major issue at 8,000 miles (PCM failure -- the engine would just up and stop out of nowhere, at any speed), the other made it about 25,000 miles before weirdness started (not sure what happened because it started the very day I traded it in, at the Infiniti dealer's lot; the whole truck was shuddering when I started the engine).

My experience no doubt will echo many others'...

[Blue_Tires]

8. i tried to point that out on another thread

a few months back...the japanese automakers have been lobbying for gov't cash (from both the USA and Japan) behind closed doors for months now...

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. It's "unbelievable" because you invented your own headline

in which you read too much into this.

The loans will allow Ford to update factories in five US states, Chu said. Nissan will use the loans to make improvements to its Tennessee plant.

With this loan, "Nissan expects to cut the costs of its batteries in half and ramp up production of 150,000 American-made competitively priced electric vehicles annually," Chu said.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gG6Mb5l66aj373L_drkX47t8PXWA

The department also awarded Nissan $1.6 billion and Tesla Motors $465 million to ramp up electric car production.
...
Nissan will retool its Smyrna, Tenn., plant to build electric vehicles and build a battery manufacturing facility.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/23/AR2009062301444.html?hpid=moreheadlines

This is support for Tennessee.

[Romulox]

10. Nonsense. From the Associate Press article: "The car will be made in Japan..."

Your article and mine disagree with one another, but it's unfair and inaccurate to accuse me of distorting the information in the Associated Press article I linked. The article you posted didn't exist when I posted the AP article. :hi:

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Next word: 'initially'

"The car will be made in Japan initially but company officials have said they eventually want to build the vehicle at Nissan's plant in Smyrna, Tenn"

The Volkswagen Beetle was built in Germany, initially. Later, it was built in places like Mexico. The AP article does not say the money will go to the manufacturing site in Japan. It doesn't specify where the money will go; you, and not AP, assumed that meant it would go to support manufacturing in Japan - and you then got everyone else thinking that, by inventing a headline that says it explicitly. That was your title - is wasn't from AP.

But the other articles do specify where Nissan will invest the money - in Smyrna. You took an ambiguously written sentence from AP, assumed something from it, and then wrote your assumption as if it's a fact. You have indeed given people here an incorrect picture.

[JVS]

14. LOL! Great quotation technique! Also, this thread is a duplicate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5905594&mesg_id=5905594

[dysfunctional press]

12. THAT ought to go over well with voters next time around...

:eyes:

[MadHound]

16. Trying to mislead people through misleading subject lines, again.

Once more, this isn't a bailout, this is a pretty typical R&D loan, one that would have also been given to GM and Chrysler, but they don't qualify given their bankruptcy proceedings.

These sorts of R&D loans are pretty typical throughout the corporate world, it happens in high tech, pharmaceuticals and numerous other industries. The US makes a little cash on the deal, the technological envelope is pushed out further, and companies, including domestic companies benefit in the end.

But you continue to spam this board with your misleading bullshit. Give it a rest.