Archive for January 11th, 2013

How do you say “Thank you, Uncle Sam” in Finnish?

Fisker always was a snake oil car company. Fisker came to the American public’s consciousness in 2009 as part of the Obama administration’s plans to promote green manufacturing, and to “put Americans back to work.”

Fisker Automotive, backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a veteran Silicon Valley venture-capital firm of which former Vice President Al Gore was a partner, got a $529 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy to build the Karma, a luxury sports car which would sell for about $90,000. In September 2009 The Wall Street Journal reported that Fisker officials said the car would be “powered by a lithium-ion battery, will be able to run solely on electric power for 50 miles, and will achieve an average fuel economy of 100 mpg over the span of a year.”

Then things started to go sideways. Read the rest of this entry »