Fisker Will Open Shuttered GM Factory for Hybrid Production

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Smart Grid News

Fisker Automotive, armed with a $528.7 million loan from DOE, will re-open the shuttered GM Boxwood Plant to produce long-range, plug-in electric hybrid vehicles, Vice President Joe Biden announced this week.

Fisker picked the site for its global production facility because of its size, production capacity, shipping port access, rail lines and a skilled workforce. Fisker received the conditional loan from DOE in September for the development of two lines of plug-in hybrids, which are expected to save hundreds of millions of gallons of gasoline and offset millions of tons of carbon pollution by 2016.

"While some wanted to write off America's auto industry, we said no. We knew that we needed to do something different—in Delaware and all across the nation," the vice president said. "Thanks to a real commitment by this administration, loans from the Department of Energy, the creativity of U.S. companies and the tenacity of great state partners like Delaware—we're on our way to helping America's auto industry reclaim its top position in the global market."

Part of the DOE loan, $359 million, will cover the cost of reviving the Boxwood factory, which will be the site of Fisker's Project NINA. The NINA project entails development and construction of a mass-market plug-in hybrid sedan. The company estimates that it will produce 75,000 to 100,000 of the highly efficient vehicles every year by 2014.

Read more: http://www.smartgridnews.com/artman/publish/End_Use_Electric_Transportation_News/Fisker-Will-Open-Shuttered-GM-Factory-for-Hybrid-Production-1339.html

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WIN alerted me to the news: http://www.laborradio.org/node/12251

[mackerel]

1. Last I checked Fisker's website was down.

They have a very nice looking hybrid sportcar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisker_Automotive

Good to see an innovative company taking advantage of the situation and putting the facility to good use. Hopefully this will restore a fair amount of lost jobs.

[MercutioATC]

2. A $115k sports car with a 49-mile range?

Yeah, THAT'LL be a big seller...

[dhpgetsit]

4. That's without starting the gas motor.

[MercutioATC]

5. ...at which point is becomes just another $115k sports car.

Which would get spanked by any REAL $115k sports car.


But this is actually about the Fisker Nina, not the Karma. The Nina is a $40k plug-in hybrid sedan that nobody has seen yet, made by a manufacturer who's only real experience is building custom Mercedes and BMWs that it couldn't sell.

[tinrobot]

6. No, a $40,000 five passenger car with decent range.

You're looking at their current car, which goes 50 miles on the batteries before the hybrid system kicks in. Then it can go indefinitely as long as you put gas in the tank.

The car built in the Delaware plant will be a $40,000 family car with similar range and drivetrain, but not as luxurious and fast.

[davepdx]

3. Last month the right-wing blogs got this story wrong and smeared

Al Gore by blaming him as being responsible for securing a $529 million (US) government backed backed to build a $79,000 electric car in Finland. I'm glad that the story is being corrected with articles like this. Another article I saw today indicated that most of the loan is to go toward the production of a $40,000 family sedan (plug-in electric hybrid). The new sedan will still be spendy but at least it will be produced here in the US.

[eppur_se_muova]

7. A couple of links to debunking ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8718084&mesg_id=8718267