October 4, 12:41 PM
Green Transportation Examiner
David Herron
Fisker is getting ready to begin selling a high end luxury plug-in hybrid car, the Fisker Karma, whose price clearly aims at the richer-than-god crowd. The Karma is a plug-in hybrid vehicle with a 50 mile battery-only range, after which the gas engine kicks in to provide power. It is a luxury sedan with the features meant to appeal to owners of high-end Mercedes, BMW's and the like. On Sept 23, 2009 the US Department of Energy announced a $528 million conditional loan to Fisker and the right wing fanatics went on the attack leveraging two points. One point was one of their favorite targets of demonization, Al Gore, and his support of Fisker. The other was the fact that the Karma is going to be assembled at a plant in Finland. The turmoil was helped along by a misleadingly titled article published in the Wall Street Journal and inflammatory incorrect news coverage on Fox News. To be clear there are some valid questions here but why did the right wing harumphing machine wait for an Al Gore connected story to kick into their complain and shouting mode? It seems they are pursuing their typical agenda of demonization and the connection between Al Gore (already demonized) and Fisker Automotive simply gave them a target of opportunity.
It is always helpful when the right wing harumphing machine kicks in to go to original sources and learn the real truth. In this case that is the loan agreement between the DoE and Fisker Automotive.
From the Conditional Commitment letter between Fisker Automotive and the DoE we learn that there are in fact two loans, the Karma Loan ($169 million) to assist bringing the Karma luxury sedan to market, and the Kx Loan ($360 million) to assist development of a lower cost Sedan aimed at a mass market. This second car is what Fisker calls Project NINA and is targeted at a more modest $39,000 list price and will be produced in the U.S.
The Karma (high end luxury sedan) is slated to begin production at a factory in Finland (see TH!NK to resume making electric city cars soon). That factoid is the nugget of truth in the shouting by the right wing harumphing machine, however they are blowing it up out of proportion. According to the Commitment Letter the Karma Loan includes support for R&D and parts production facilities in the U.S., vehicle certification to meet both U.S. and EU requirements, commencement of production, selling 11,000 vehicles by Sept 30, 2011, and creation of a dealer network in the U.S. Hence the right wing harumphing machine is making noise about a fraction of a fraction of the total loan.
Returning to the Kx Loan (modest priced sedan) portion of the Commitment Letter we see the requirements are purchase of a site for a factory, retooling the site for vehicle production, vehicle engineering, design and certification, commencement of production, and creation of a dealer network. Fisker has stated the production of this car will be done in the U.S. hence the Kx Loan is completely in support of jobs and production inside the U.S. The right wing harumphing machine should be happy about this, yet they are focusing on the fraction of a fraction as outlined above.
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more:
http://www.examiner.com/x-14333-Green-Transportation-Examiner~y2009m10d4-Fisker-the-vast-rightwing-conspiracy-and-the-528-Mil-DOE-loanrelated:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6848841&mesg_id=6848841#
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