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Obama-backed Fisker Automotive laying off most rank-and-file employees, exploring bankruptcy
Hotair ^ | 04/05/2013 | Erika Johnsen

Posted on 04/05/2013 1:44:48 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

The Solyndra-fication of the Department of Energy loan-guaranteed Fisker Automotive, whose many merits as a hybrid sports car maker were once hailed throughout the land, is almost complete. The supposedly green-tech company announced that they intend to lay off nearly all of their regular employees on Friday, and that they will maintain about 53 senior managers and executives — mostly to pursue buyers for the company’s assets. The WSJ reports:

Struggling electric-car maker Fisker Automotive Inc. is dismissing 150 of its remaining 200-employee staff on Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter. …

The company has been looking for a large investor or acquirer, but talks with at least two interested parties fell apart last month. …

The U.S. government, a big lender to Fisker, holds collateral on the company’s assets and could influence the direction of any bankruptcy. …

Fisker has delivered around 2,000 vehicles globally and at one point had 50 U.S. dealers, though the number has dwindled as its financial problems have increased. It hasn’t built a car since July and its primary battery supplier, A123 Systems Inc., filed for bankruptcy protection and was purchased by Chinese auto parts maker Wanxiang Group Inc.

A123 Systems, you’ll remember, was once upon a time another Obama DOE-backed venture. Winning.

Shockingly, despite the Obama administration’s very best market-interfering and subsidizing intentions, the hybrid company just didn’t take off the way it was supposed to, dagnabit — so it’s really comforting that the DOE is getting back to dishing out those stimulus funds, no?

Despite a fiscal cliff and sequestration worries, more than $1.2 billion in cash payments for energy projects (in lieu of tax credits) have been issued by the Department of Treasury and Department of Energy since January 1, according to documents from the U.S. Treasury.

Through February 14, $1,254,769,726 was distributed by the 1603 program to 435 solar, wind, and other renewable energy projects. The vast majority of the projects—381—were for solar electricity. The cash payments represent up to “30% of the project’s total eligible cost basis” in lieu of investment tax credits.

The average 1603 payment made in the first six weeks of 2013 for all projects was $2.88 million, with awards ranging from $120.2 million for a wind project in New York to $4,000 for a solar project in Montana.

Sequester? What sequester?


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: automotive; bbankruptcy; fisked; fisker; greenfraud
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1 posted on 04/05/2013 1:44:49 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind
Pretty soon “Fisker” is going to become synonymous with government doing something unpleasant to the tax payer...
2 posted on 04/05/2013 1:48:14 PM PDT by gov_bean_ counter (Romans 1:22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,)
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To: SeekAndFind

... as in “Wow, Obama just “Fiskered” us again.


3 posted on 04/05/2013 1:48:48 PM PDT by gov_bean_ counter (Romans 1:22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,)
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To: gov_bean_ counter

Another Obama success story.


4 posted on 04/05/2013 1:53:07 PM PDT by phormer phrog phlyer
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To: SeekAndFind

I was wondering how that electric “car” thing was working out for the “progressives”.


5 posted on 04/05/2013 1:55:15 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Dude! Where's my Bill of Rights?)
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To: SeekAndFind
From Rooters on March 28:

Fisker hires law firm to prepare for possible bankruptcy -source

6 posted on 04/05/2013 1:57:49 PM PDT by jazusamo ("Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent." -- Adam Smith)
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To: jazusamo

Obama = 100% business failures.


7 posted on 04/05/2013 2:00:24 PM PDT by stephenjohnbanker
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To: stephenjohnbanker

Exactly...The turkey is not concerned about it though, it’s not his money.


8 posted on 04/05/2013 2:03:37 PM PDT by jazusamo ("Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent." -- Adam Smith)
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To: gov_bean_ counter

Slush funds at every turn....


9 posted on 04/05/2013 2:05:15 PM PDT by caww
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To: SeekAndFind
$107,850 Fisker Karma breaks down (during Consumer Reports test)

Soon after Consumer Reports bought the Fisker Karma to test, it stopped working. The luxury plug-in hybrid had to be towed off the track.

10 posted on 04/05/2013 2:08:26 PM PDT by Timber Rattler (Just say NO! to RINOS and the GOP-E)
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To: SeekAndFind

Can Obama pick ‘em or can Obama pick ‘em? He is presently 0 for however many he’s put up. Its Cloward-Piven to the ultimate. Even by accident someone would have picked one prospect that won. Its an indication that he is getting EXACTLY what he wants to happen.


11 posted on 04/05/2013 2:11:44 PM PDT by Don Corleone ("Oil the gun..eat the cannoli. Take it to the Mattress.")
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To: SeekAndFind

He has a black thumb

Pray for America


12 posted on 04/05/2013 2:15:01 PM PDT by bray (Surviving to spite Obama)
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To: FReepers

Click The Pic

"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our selection between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat in our drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labors and in our amusements, our people.. must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live..

13 posted on 04/05/2013 2:18:10 PM PDT by DJ MacWoW (My faith and politics cannot be separated)
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To: jazusamo
it’s not his money.

I'm sure he would flippantly say "You got to spend money to make money".

14 posted on 04/05/2013 2:20:13 PM PDT by llevrok (2013: The USA is in a Cold Civil War.)
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To: bray

Obamacare will be equally effective as these other ventures.

Feel good yes.

Feel healthy, not so much.

Feel secure?


15 posted on 04/05/2013 2:20:48 PM PDT by cicero2k
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To: Timber Rattler

I don’t know why anybody claims there is a problem w these cars. When they got wet during Sandy, the batteries didn’t actually explode; they just caught fire. Why would a battery catching fire when it gets wet be a problem. Just park the car on rainy days. Or else drive it in the desert; it almost never rains in the desert, right?


16 posted on 04/05/2013 2:22:33 PM PDT by Fantasywriter
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To: SeekAndFind

all these grants and crap to these kinds of companies were to derail funds from working technology, to prevent real solutions and products from being developed and available to citizens. They did double duty here wasting tax dollars on stuff that wouldn’t work and couldn’t get private investors, who knew better, and at the same time making sure this money couldn’t make useful products for people to be more energy efficient with. Third thing it did in many cases was give a kickback to political donor cronies to o-hole.


17 posted on 04/05/2013 2:27:41 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I can neither confirm or deny that; even if I could, I couldn't - it's classified.)
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To: Don Corleone

Solar is the new Government Charity. Noting is to be returned to the taxpaxer. Hell we created 200 jobs with that debachle!
Would have been better to just put on the dole and forget em!
Besides who can afford a 100,000 car!
The automobile has always been Joe citizen that buys what is affordable and is appealing and reliable!
I do not understand why people that think charging these things is free! Why would an Electric entity make less than the Gasoline or Natural Gas producer for the average family to get around! Plug that thing in and watch your electric meter spin! Prob why the Elec company replaced that dial that spins with digital read out.
Nothing is free!


18 posted on 04/05/2013 2:30:46 PM PDT by Conserev1 ("Still Clinging to my Bible and my Weapon")
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To: SeekAndFind

Documentation File on the negative impact of the Obamanation Counterculture on America.


19 posted on 04/05/2013 2:30:59 PM PDT by Graewoulf (Traitor John Roberts' Commune-Style Obama'care' violates U.S. Constitution AND Anti-Trust Law.)
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Comment #20 Removed by Moderator


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