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$529M Gov't Loan To Develop $89,000 Hybrid Sports Car
theodp writes "The WSJ reports that a tiny car company backed by former VP Al Gore has just gotten a $529M US government loan to help build an $89,000 hybrid sports car in Finland. The award this week to California startup Fisker Automotive follows an earlier $465M government loan to Tesla Motors, purveyors of a $109,000 British-built electric Roadster. Fisker's other investors (PDF) include the Al Gharaffa Investment Co., a Cayman Islands corporation."
The article makes it sound like it would only be a car for the "elite", but I think the hybrid/electric car development also plays a big role in it. Considering how shitty hybrid car development is by far, its only good. And maybe now US can stop relying so much on oil too.
How about just letting me read the article and see for myself?
I'd say this is a typical example of an elite environmentalist. I pity the people who don't see they are merely using people and care only minimally for the environmment.
Much is being made of the US Govt is funding these cars that are to be built outside the US, but the fact is that the technology is going to be owned by a US company. Fisker is essentially outsourcing every aspect of their development but the resulting technology, and the profits, will accrue to the US business and be taxed in the US. It seems perfectly reasonable for the US govt to underwrite creation of valuable technology that will benefit the US in the long term. People need to get over the fact that the US is now a post-industrial nation who's future lies in innovation rather than manufacturing.
If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
This is a waste of money. Hybrid cars are a waste. We dont need patch up jobs for older technology paired with (in my opinion) already outdated tech.
At least Tesla Motors is on the right track. 500+KM on 45 min charge (recyclable lith ion batteries), engineered by Lotus. and around 2012 be able to get your hands on a model S for under 40,000 (dont quote me on price, check out their site). and if you are in Canada the gov is giving immediate $4000-$10000 grants to citizens who buy a "green" car.
And yes, the sports version is a tad expensive (125,000 and +extra for Roaster Sport). Though is can accelerate faster than any known porche or ferrari (excluding the Enzo). At least thats what their CEO said....
Actually, I am a realistic and moderate Libertarian. I don't believe the state should tell people what to do with their bodies, I don't believe in so much government (and taxes). I believe in more personal freedom *AND* responsibility that goes with it (including the ability to fail and suffer). But I understand the need for regulation and fair markets plus inclusion in the world economy and affairs (...to a point).
Extreme Libertarianism doesn't work any more than extreme anything.
But one thing is for sure, without REAL competition in the party system, there can be no real change. Even if people are not "for" any of the so-called "third parties", they should still support the idea of it being POSSIBLE for "third parties" to really participate and put real pressure on the "two parties". Choice is good. It is good for people, it is good for business, it is good for government. The way the system is setup now, there is no real choice... your vote only really works for the Republicrats or the Democans.
This simply proves there's money to be made in green. It isn't earned money like the way real businesses operate. It's confiscatory profit from you and me. This is why the global warming debate is so damn tainted. People want to make it out like you're a freak if your skeptical about causation or about what can really be done. I'm skeptical when people are getting "loans" like this from people like you and me under the guise of going green. It's going green, alright. Isn't envy and greed said to be "green?" I know American cash is "green!"
When did the WSJ sink to the level of Fox news?
When Rupert Murdoch bought it?
I think the niche of electric sports cars, so far occupied by Tesla, has been an incredibly cunning strategy. Consider some strengths and weaknesses of an electric car:
+ Instant high acceleration; high torque available at any time, at any speed
+ Shiny and novel and impressive
- Heavy and bulky batteries
- Short range
- Have to charge it a lot
- Expensive
And the requirements and constraints of a sports car:
Need: Good speed and acceleration
Need: Shiny and novel and impressive (i.e. expensive), so you can show off
But: Drinks fuel faster, may have shorter range.
But: You probably won't go very far in it, or very often.
But: Often have lots of interior luxuries stripped out in the name of weight saving.
Bingo! The requirements of a sports car are - to a reasonable extent - satisfied well by an electric motor. You get incredible acceleration, whenever you want. You get something impressive and futuristic-sounding and exotic. The constraints that lightweight sports cars have *already* do well to mask the disadvantages of an electric vehicle - with a sports car you probably expect reduced range, you don't want to use it all the time (so charging time not an issue, just keep it in the garage plugged in), you don't expect to carry groceries (bulk of the batteries doesn't matter), you don't expect lots of luxuries (so they can be stripped out to somewhat compensate for battery weight). And if you wanted a sports car you were already prepared to spend something expensive (and probably susceptible to image-based marketing - so the futuristic, green, responsible but exciting thing an electric sports car has will probably work on you!).
As a bonus, sports cars are usually expensive in terms of fuel, whilst an electric car is going to be cheap. Probably even in the US, even more so in other markets.
Genius. Goes to show that all those companies trying to make practical, electric town cars might have been starting from the wrong place!
I am all for developement of greener alternatives! But why the fuck are we giving loans and grants to companies to build these cars outside the US? These loans were designed to stimulate the economy. The only thing we are doing is stimulating the UK and Finland while we have 10% fucking unemployment. Our current president is no better than Bush. This angers me to no end. We are still giving money away with No Strings Attached that we will never see again. More wealthcare! I, for one, am just puke sick and tired of it. Anyone else?
The consumerist faux environmentalism backed by mainstream politicians like Gore is little more than fraud intended to enrich them personally.
The last thing a sports car, any sports car, can be is green. Sports cars are toys for the rich that consume massive amounts of energy both in their production and their use. Whether that energy is elecric or fossil fuel is almost secondary at this point. As a species we need to both make massive cuts in our energy use and change the way we generate that energy if we are to have any hope of survival.
If you take environmentalism seriously it means no more cars full stop. At least for the forseeable future. Putting a 50-100kg person inside a ton of steel is simply not an energy efficient method of transportation.
If you think AGW is some kind of fraud, why build electic cars at all? if you take the predictions of climate scientists remotely seriously you need to realise that the infinite growth demanded by consumerism is an insane pipe dream that will desroy us.
To quote the definition of demagogue (Oxford English Dictionary):
Note first the prominent placement of "Al Gore" in the article. Immediately the prejudices against Gore are brought out in the reader, as much work has been done to demonize him. Then the "luxury car" moniker, implying that this isn't for the good of the "common people", but only for rich elites. Finally comes the "rights of the taxpayer" meme, where firmly instilled prejudices against government taxation and spending are brought out.
Nowhere in the article is any real perspective given about the development cycle of high tech products, and about how new tech often first appears in luxury goods before percolating down to the mass market. Nowhere is it mentioned that government has often helped nurture other high tech companies in the past (Boeing for example via military spending). The article is much like the bell for Pavlov's dog, where certain words such as "Gore" and "taxation" elicit a conditioned response in indoctrinated readers. The Wall Street Journal has become the Pravda of the right.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Also, many adults are not able to understand the difference between "million" and "billions". The total amount of the government loan (not handout) of given to these two innovative automakers add up to less than a billion dollars. Compared that to nearly a trillion dollars that has been spent over the last year to rescue banks and investment bankers. It is very likely that a lot more than a billion dollars of the government handout to the banks was used to paid "guaranteed bonuses" for the executives who were (ir)responsible for bringing their financial institutions to the brink of bankruptcy. And the "Citizens Against Government Waste" somewhat did not bother to make any comments regarding the $1 Trillion handout to Wall Street...
..that's why I wrote this "Dams/reservoirs and better usage and conservation are our only options, ..".they should just go to desert styled landscaping. I for sure don't want tens of millions of people to just leave the desert areas where they are now and go move to other places where they take productive farmland out of the picture. We already lose too much farmland to development as it is. More water we can store up and move where required, we can't just store up and move good farmland. And even irrigated farmland we have now would benefit, look at California's central valley this year with tons of farms put out of production because they just can't get enough water. This is our number one winter vegetable area. It's wiping them out, whole communities going bust now, unemployment just through the roof, plus loss of all that food. And we need replacements for the other ag areas that are pumping fossil water for irrigation. The farm land is good, it is developed and in production already, they just need an alternative water source. We have excess water yearly in several areas, just oceans of it, if we can capture and use just a small fraction of that, it's a big win all around.
I've supported a plan to create many more national strategic reservoirs all over (just like we have a strategic petroleum reserve and like we *should* have with basic foodstuffs, they ended that program unfortunately) and capture excess water,(like all the flashfloods we got yesterday here in north Georgia, billions and billions of gallons, just a huge amount, our bottom fields flooded out so bad it has smashed a lot of fences, it was medium awesome to see it) then a system of interconnected pipelines to move the water around on demand based on real needs, perhaps with concurrently developed windchargers along the routes with more hydropower at some of the reservoirs if practical. Sort of a national highway system, that scale of a project, but with water. Something like the Pickens plan idea, but on a hugemongous scale and using reservoirs instead of underground sources. More electricity, more water available where required, and better management thereof, a lot more useful productive jobs, better national physical and economic security. Fund it with seriously large and multi year, perhaps even multi decade, tax credits. The benefits would more than outweigh the costs on a large enough construction and time scale.
I lived several years with zero modern conveniences people take for granted, including running water or electricity. I tell you, and I have thought about this a lot and lived it, clean potable water on demand is *the* dividing line between stoneage raw existence and civilization. I don't care *what* other tech advances you have, if you have no water, or way too much water, all the rest is useless. As such, I think it should be our number one national scale priority and emphasis in this century. People just don't care about it much until it is *too late* to do much about it when a disaster strikes.