Auto Show picture of concept Fisker Karma S
Posted on 10/28/2009 4:43:01 PM PDT by Libloather
Super Gaff-O-Matic! Biden Reveals Entire Fisker Lineup
By Marty Padgett
October 27th, 2009
Auto Show picture of concept Fisker Karma S
Vice President Joe Biden, known for repeated instances of foot-in-mouth disease, unwittingly spilled the beans on Fisker Automotive's plan for a Delaware-built, three-vehicle family of plug-in hybrids.
Fox News reports that Biden told press gathered in Wilmington, Del., that Fisker would eventually build 100,000 plug-in hybrid sedans, coupes and crossovers "every single year."
In a follow-up interview, founder Henrik Fisker told Fox that Biden "definitely told what our product plans are."
Fisker's gambit in the government's full-court press for electrified vehicles is a brilliant one, on its face. While electric-car company Tesla has yet to name a plant for its new Model S sedan--and has discounted the notion of buying the old GM-Toyota NUMMI factory in the Bay Area--Fisker's signed up to acquire the old GM plant in Delaware, which closed earlier this year.
The plant had been the home of the Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky roadsters. Fisker is said to have acquired the plant for $18 million.
Both Fisker and Tesla--along with Ford and Nissan--are using federal loans from a Bush Administration energy bill that will provide $25 billion to automakers trying to electrify their fleets or convert them to greener production, to boost fuel economy by 25 percent over 2005 levels. The loans are limited to companies with solid business plans, prototypes in hand, and solid financials. General Motors is said to have filed for loan money under the plan, now that's it's clear of Chapter 11.
Ford will receive $5.9 billion under the plan, while Nissan will get $1.6 billion in loans. Tesla will get $465 million in loans, and Fisker recently qualified for about $529 million in loans--about $511 million more than the cost of the former GM manufacturing site.
The Fisker plant and loan money will be used to build vehicles from "Project Nina," which will bring a plug-in hybrid sedan to market by the middle of the decade, for less than $40,000 after other incentives for green cars are included. Incentives such as tax credits for the purchase of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, for example, have been estimated to reduce its consumer cost to around $32,500.
According to Fisker, Biden said the new Project Nina sedan "looked like a four-door Ferrari." Biden, as you'll recall from the presidential campaign, takes Amtrak to work daily.
Fisker's first vehicle will be the $80,000 Karma coupe and convertible, which is to enter production in Finland late next year. Fox News adds Fisker will bring production of the Karma to America in its second generation, in 2016.
Where’s that secret bunker location again, Joe?
“Plug-in” hybrids: Cars or hair?
$80,000? Wow, that’s affordable.
Why would they want to keep secret Biden’s Gift to his home state? The only story here is the marketing of Biden’s incompetence as “incompetence”, rather then chest thumping the backdoor deals that gives away another $465 million of federal taxpayer cash to private enterprise.
Fisker is the auto company backed by Al Gore that secured the $529 million U.S. loan with our tax dollars.
Oh, please! A leak? Sounds more like free advertising.
Of course they embraced the UAW for this factory.
This whole deal is basically flowing more taxpayer billions to the UAW under the guise of “energy saving” and “green”.
Bush was suckered into setting most of this up. And now Obama's pals reap the profits.
There wouldn't be a Government Motors if Bush hadn't passed the bailout, which gave Obama enough time and precedent to fire the CEO, move into the bankruptcy court, instruct the bankruptcy judge to get lost, screw the shareholders, and give GM to the UAW, who will take the money and destroy the product line.
Think what they saved on advertising by using Biden's always-open mouth!
Fisker is a terrible name for a car. It is a terrible name for anything but a person who fisks.
| will bring a plug-in hybrid sedan to market by the middle of the decade, for less than $40,000 after other incentives for green cars are included. Incentives such as tax credits for the purchase of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, for example, have been estimated to reduce its consumer cost to around $32,500.
Now you tell one. |
Drudge, Rush, Hannity been notified / reminded?
I haven’t heard a lot of high-profile stupidity out of Joe lately. I’d have loved to have been a fly on the wall when Obama read him the Riot Act. I’ll bet that it was something to hear.
Pray that this mental midget never becomes president...
Doesn’t Fisker make scissors and bathroom radios?
Carter, Obama, Biden...
And still they try to play the Palin card. LOL
These geniuses make Dan Quayle look like Einstein.
Do you really believe president pantywaist is capable of reading anyone the riot act?? This idiot is such a girlyman I don't think he could come up with a decent sissy slap.
Ol’ Joe was coming up with about one entertaining gaffe a week. Suddenly, he isn’t. At some point, President Pantywaist or maybe his wife, or Rahm or somebody said ‘STFU Joe, or else!’
“Fisker’s Lobbyists”
http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2009/09/fiskers-lobbyists
One angle left unexplored by the Wall Street Journal in its article on the $529 million federal loan to Al Gore’s Fisker Automotive is the company’s lobbying expenditures. According to Senate lobbying records reviewed by FutureOfCapitalism.com, Fisker spent $120,000 between December 2008 and June 2009 on the services of the firm Fabiani & Company.
The filings indicate that the Fabiani lobbyists who worked on Fisker’s behalf included Laura Lovelace, a Goldman Sachs veteran whose bio says that she worked in the Bush administration’s Treasury Department in the Office of Economic Policy, where she “worked with the White House, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Commerce on the National Energy Policy Interagency Task Force.” The filings indicate that the Fabiani lobbyists lobbied the Department of Energy to get the loan.
A July filing indicated that Ms. Lovelace is still representing Fisker, but has left Fabiani to join a firm called “Wellford Energy Advisors,” named for Harrison Wellford, who in 2008, “advised then Senator Obama on White House organization and strategic planning for the Presidential transition during the pre-election period and served as transition advisor to Michelle Obama and Senator Biden.” In other words, how do you get a $529 million loan from the government? You hire the former Bush administration official who helped set up the program, and President Obama’s transition adviser. What a wonderful example of bipartisan cooperation.
by Editor | Sep 25, 2009 at 8:50 am
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By the way, for those of you who didn't know this, "incentives" are a form of Free Money that grows on federal trees. It costs us nothing, and it never has to be paid back.