$529M DOE Loan Spawns $97K Made-in-Finland Cars

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$529M DOE Loan Spawns $97K Made-in-Finland Cars

Posted by Soulskill on Friday October 21, 2011 @05:01AM from the mission-accomplished dept.

theodp writes "With PR successes like the Fisker Karma, does the Department of Energy need to worry about PR failures like Solyndra? ABC News and others are reporting that electric car company Fisker, which received a $529M federal loan guarantee with the approval of the Obama administration, is assembling its first line of $96,985 base-priced hybrid cars in Finland, saying it could not find a facility in the United States capable of doing the work. According to Green Car Reports, Fisker said the EPA had rated the Karma at 54 MPGe (MPG-equivalent) when running on electricity from its battery pack, and that the EPA-rated electric range would be 32 miles. Omitted from the press release was the 20-mpg rating for a Karma running on power from its range-extending gasoline engine."

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Sincerity? by CRCulver · 2011-10-21 05:02 · Score: 5, Insightful

Considering the high price of labour in Finland (where even illiterate cleaners make $13/hour), could this be a rare instance of a company telling the truth when it says it had to outsource because it couldn't get the work done in America? It's hard to believe that this work is being relocated just to cut costs.
1. Re:Sincerity? by TooMuchToDo · 2011-10-21 05:07 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Funny, Tesla doesn't have any problems building fully electric cars at the ex-NUMMI plant in California, and Chevrolet doesn't have any problems building the range-extended Volt in Hamtramck/Detroit, MI. Sounds like Fisker should have their loan called.
2. Re:Sincerity? by CRCulver · 2011-10-21 05:17 · Score: 1
  
  There's very few Illiterate people in Finland, the education system is top notch.
  
  "Illiterate" is rather an exaggeration, but my point was that people without much education are able to receive a salary that in the US would seem fairly generous for the work done. When I moved to Finland for graduate school, I didn't speak Finnish for some time and so the only work available to me was cleaning. Among my colleagues, which also included a great deal of foreign students like myself, were refugees who came from some horrible places and had little formal schooling. Nonetheless, we all started off at 9 euro/hour and then received raises after a pretty short time at the same place.
3. Re:Sincerity? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-21 05:29 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Big difference to make only few cars vs making a lot of cars. The factory in Finland specializes on small patches and high profile cars such as Porche Boxter. Even the article says first line of cars coming from Finland. If the car sells more than few thousand then US plants can be asked to make bigger orders. I doubt US has such an advanced manufacturer capable of making small patches cost efficiently.
4. Re:Sincerity? by rasmusbr · 2011-10-21 05:30 · Score: 1
  
  That's true. Finland has what could be described as the world's best public school system and is in a good position to build a modern tech industry centered around Helsinki, or rather to improve on the one they already have.
  The grandfather post probably refers to illiterate refugees from Africa and the Middle East, although I doubt that your average cleaning firm would hire someone who can't read.
5. Re:Sincerity? by dintech · 2011-10-21 05:31 · Score: 1
  
  Human Rights? Luxury! When I were a lad, I got spat on as a thank you as thanks, and I was lucky!
6. Re:Sincerity? by jhoegl · 2011-10-21 05:31 · Score: 1
  
  That is as interesting as the 32 mile battery life and the 20mpg gas engine for 95K/per car
  
  based on hybrid car standards, this is pretty darn terrible.
7. Re:Sincerity? by durrr · 2011-10-21 05:31 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Low tier jobs are usually really fucking boring and should not have absolutely bottom-tier pay unless really effortless. Generous pay to keep morale decent and generally ensure social(and economic, and mental) stability should anyway always take precedence over shaving away benefits to those who need them the most in the name of maximizing profits(by adding another 0.0001% to the company surplus, save those money by dropping the CEO wage instead).
  
  You may refer to it as generous, might be, but I'd more prefer to consider it to simply be humane, the ice-cold greed that somehow have become modus operandi in most of the world is nothing short of pathological.
8. Re:Sincerity? by TeknoHog · 2011-10-21 05:33 · Score: 2
  
  There are very few Illiterate people in Finland
  Fixed that for you.
  Sincerely,
  a Finn.
  
  --
  Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
9. Re:Sincerity? by AliasMarlowe · 2011-10-21 05:34 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Actually, the availability of certain manufacturing processes and related skills is often localized. There are several kinds of modern manufacturing process which appear to be unavailable or uncommon in the US.
  One of the products I designed has certain parts (passive, but necessarily complex in shape) which are made in Finland, simply because no US or Canadian supplier could be found who could make them in moderate quantities. The only US bids received stated that they assumed we had made an error in the RFQ, and actually required quantities in the tens of thousands. These suppliers relied on a manufacturing process which required that scale and would result in prohibitively expensive unit costs for a production run of mere hundreds. The supplier in Finland uses an entirely different industrial process, and can produce single digit quantities if necessary, at quite acceptable unit prices.
  
  --
  Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
10. Re:Sincerity? by ackthpt · 2011-10-21 05:35 · Score: 1
  
  That is as interesting as the 32 mile battery life and the 20mpg gas engine for 95K/per car
  based on hybrid car standards, this is pretty darn terrible.
  Sounds likt he Homer-mobile equivilent
  
  --
  
  A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
11. Re:Sincerity? by beltsbear · 2011-10-21 05:40 · Score: 1
  
  Yea, but it looks good. Really, have you seen pics of this car? WOW. Also well done is the campy/sexy advertising. On the technical side, the 32 mile range is pretty good for a car that size. Just don't run out of charge because 20mpg is now less then many full size pickup trucks.
12. Re:Sincerity? by gnasher719 · 2011-10-21 05:49 · Score: 2
  
  based on hybrid car standards, this is pretty darn terrible.
  By any standards, this is quite terrible. So with a gallon of fuel and a full charge you can drive 32 + 20 = 52 miles. I can drive a bit over 60 miles per UK gallon / 50 miles per US gallon, without having to charge. And immediately after that, I can go another 60 miles with the next gallon, without having to recharge at all. And my car costs just a tiny little bit less than $95,000.
13. Re:Sincerity? by Anne_Nonymous · 2011-10-21 05:50 · Score: 1
  
  >> had to outsource because it couldn't get the work done in America
  This seems pretty reasonable; the Finns have more experience assembling Ikea.
14. Re:Sincerity? by element-o.p. · 2011-10-21 05:52 · Score: 2
  
  People pay for what they value. If low tier jobs have low pay scales, it's because there is a ready supply of labor to fill those positions, even though the pay sucks. OTOH, highly skilled workers, especially in a niche industry, are rather more difficult to come by, and the pay scales reflect that value. That's not pathological, and that's not greedy. That's rewarding those who are willing to invest the time and effort into making themselves more valuable to prospective employers, and that's a Good Thing.
  
  --
  MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
15. Re:Sincerity? by Noughmad · 2011-10-21 05:52 · Score: 1
  
  959-pound feet
  Oh, only now do I see the real advantage of Imperial over Metric: Built-in "yo mama" jokes.
  
  --
  PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
16. Re:Sincerity? by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-21 05:54 · Score: 2
  
  That's not it. The US is probably the best country in which to find factories able to run small volumes of specialty products or components. Especially ones made with new technologies, newly complex electronics, dependent on high quality raw materials, and sourcing ingredients from all over the world. Yet which require the plant to work with the product developers to tweak the process quickly and with effective communication. That all is indeed the US strength, since commodity manufacturing of well understood stuff from common materials requires only cheap labor and low pollution costs to be cheap but effective - the strength of foreign manufacturing, especially Chinese or Mexican.
  Something else is going on here. Maybe the classic Obama flaw of giving money for a worthwhile endeavor that doesn't have enough strings attached for when it succeeds, not just if it fails.
  
  --
  --
  make install -not war
17. Re:Sincerity? by AvitarX · 2011-10-21 05:54 · Score: 1
  
  I doubt it will.
  I don't know what their gross margin is, but even if it's 100% they'll need to sell 5000 of these things. Or twice as many as Tesla has manufactured (there goes the argument about small runs).
  Rolls Royce sells about 1000 cars/year, I think think company is going to flop.
  As for outsourcing, I'm willing to be they grabbed money from the Finnish government too.
  
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18. Re:Sincerity? by EdZ · 2011-10-21 05:56 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Based on regular car standards (here in the UK, anyway) 20mpg is absolutely abysmal.
19. Re:Sincerity? by Grishnakh · 2011-10-21 05:58 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Excellent point. Basically, the USA is little different from other third-world countries like Mexico. If you want to build a giant number of something, sure, you can do it in the USA; you'll have to spend a lot of money to build a factory, hire a labor force, train them, etc., just like if you wanted to build VWs in Mexico. But if you want something built in small numbers quickly, you need already-existing manufacturing capacity that's set up and flexible enough for small quantities, and you're not going to get that here in certain industries. It's kind of like asking Intel to make a small batch of some custom ASICs at one of their fabs here in Arizona; it's not going to happen, even though they're perfectly capable of churning out huge quantities of the latest Core2 CPUs. To get your ASICs, you can forget about America; you'll have to go to Taiwan and ask a contract fab over there like TSMC to make it for you.
20. Re:Sincerity? by Wyatt+Earp · 2011-10-21 05:59 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  There are factories in the US building small volume high quality sports cars, Viper, Corvette, CTS, CTS-V (coupe, sports wagon, sedan), BMW, Audi, plus lower volume companies and aftermarket makers like Panoz
  The Boxster and Cayman production was moved back to Germany this year.
  "Boxster and Cayman production was outsourced to Valmet Automotive in Finland from 1997 to 2011, after which when assembly was moved back to the German homeland."
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche#Production_and_sales
  http://www.valmet-automotive.com/automotive/bulletin.nsf/headlinespubliceng/ADB15534224D1B0CC225788400418888
  Fisker got the loan with the promise they'd use the factory in Delaware, if they aren't using it, they need to return the money.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisker_Automotive#US_federal_loan
21. Re:Sincerity? by Wyatt+Earp · 2011-10-21 06:06 · Score: 1
  
  Well that is exactly what Fisker got the loan to do, since they aren't doing it, they better hand back that $529 million dollars.
22. Re:Sincerity? by durrr · 2011-10-21 06:10 · Score: 1
  
  I didn't say that we should reduce the wages of surgeons to minimum, wage. I hardly said anything about skilled labour.
  My point was that even low-skill labour should be compensated at a decent rate, even if there might be a surplus of people willing to work for less. If we cut off all regulation and swapped out workers for those willing to take the job for less every time offered a situation would rapidly form where you go to having to chose between food on the table or rent, escalating further to milk for the cerals or the cerals themself. And this wonderful circle of human misery would save the employer how much really?
  
  This is especially important as productivity is increasing all the time, what this means eventually is that a hundred persons working can supply all living demands of five hundred thousand not working. If those five hundred thousand chose milk instead of ceral due to poverty we find a drop in ceral demand and we have the wonderful escalation of positive feedback feeding the supply-demand death-spiral. Ending in enormous wasted capacity due to policy and greed overrriding reason and (un?)common sense.
  Reward those that are skilled but don't step on those less fortunate, and for gods sake don't jump on their heads while they lie in the gutter.
23. Re:Sincerity? by JTsyo · 2011-10-21 06:10 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  What is this? A hardware analogy for a car issue?
24. Re:Sincerity? by nrozema · 2011-10-21 06:11 · Score: 1
  
  There are factories in the US building small volume high quality sports cars, Viper, Corvette, CTS, CTS-V (coupe, sports wagon, sedan), BMW, Audi, plus lower volume companies and aftermarket makers like Panoz
  Every example cited there has the resources and capital of a large multi-national corporation from which to source parts and spread development/production costs of low-volume models over. Except for Panoz, which sources complete drivetrains and many other bits wholesale from Ford. Not an apples/apples comparison IMO.
25. Re:Sincerity? by Dragonslicer · 2011-10-21 06:12 · Score: 1
  
  My 1986 Ford Thunderbird, which was a steel behemoth land-yacht incapable of pretty much anything except burning gas in a straight line
  If that's how you describe the Thunderbird, I'd love to hear how you'd describe the Crown Victoria.
26. Re:Sincerity? by Kohath · 2011-10-21 06:13 · Score: 1, Redundant
  
  Yes. All automobile manufacturing is exactly the same. Anyone who can do any part of automobile manufacturing can do every part of automobile manufacturing. Obviously.
27. Re:Sincerity? by Luckyo · 2011-10-21 06:22 · Score: 1
  
  Ikea is Swedish. Next time someone mixes up you and a canadian, remember this moment.
28. Re:Sincerity? by Hognoxious · 2011-10-21 06:23 · Score: 1
  
  Him: I can't find a house in this town!
  You: Funny, he has one, they have one, she has one.
  Him: Exactly!
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
29. Re:Sincerity? by Wyatt+Earp · 2011-10-21 06:24 · Score: 1
  
  And how many of them got a special sweet-heart loan to open a new factory in the state where the Vice-President was Senator of?
  None of them.
30. Re:Sincerity? by TheLink · 2011-10-21 06:26 · Score: 1
  
  That's rewarding those who are willing to invest the time and effort into making themselves more valuable to prospective employers, and that's a Good Thing.
  It's not merely time and effort though.
  No matter how much time and effort you put into training a dog, it's not going to be able to write complex software. No matter how much time and effort you put into 100m running, you're not going to run faster than Usain Bolt.
  There are many people who are willing to invest the time and the effort (and they do), they just aren't as lucky as we are. Some aren't born in the right place. Some aren't born with the right smarts. Some aren't born with the right skills or genes.
  If we take the no-mercy 100% free market capitalist approach, one day it might turn out that most humans are redundant, and you have a society with a few classes:
  1) The Rulers (who own almost everything)
  2) The Tech Priests (who create and program the robots, factories and war machines for the rulers).
  3) The Worshippers/Servants/Slaves (who do whatever 1) and 2) want ).
  4) The "unnecessary"
  This scenario may be very unlikely - since in a democracy the voters (many who would fall in class 4 ) should in theory change things before they get too screwed. But voters have often voted against their own long-term interests.
  --
  
  Too many replies beneath your current threshold
31. Re:Sincerity? by 517714 · 2011-10-21 06:27 · Score: 1
  
  What I want to know is whether they'll be able to pay back the loan. That's an important measure in whether this was a bad idea, just as much as "creating juuuurrbs".
  No, there is no measure that would suggest that it, or any other loan to private business, falls within the purview of the Government.
  
  --
  The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
32. Re:Sincerity? by an+unsound+mind · 2011-10-21 06:34 · Score: 1
  
  Okay, WHAT?
  Do you have any idea what kind of a country Finland is? I mean, we're more advanced than the US!
  New technologies, complex electronics... hmm. Ever heard of, say, Nokia, the company firing thousands of very highly educated people?
33. Re:Sincerity? by Lumpy · 2011-10-21 06:35 · Score: 2
  
  Not an excellent point, a straw man.
  There are several closed car assembly plants that can easily be restarted for minimal capitol and used for short runs of 1000-2000 cars. It's just that most Executives cant think like that so they fail to see the ability to leverage existing abandoned low cost assets that can be purchased for very little and used.
  1000-2000 cars can be HAND BUILT by skilled workers. and an assembly line that was state of the art in 1980 can easily be used by those skilled workers to do the job. There are several mothballed pontiac plants in Pontiac and Flint that will work just fine.
  Which leads me to the whole loan program and how it's set up badly. First the loan should be attached to a free factory like we have all over this country left over from the Automotive boom. You want 298mill to build solar panels? you are going to do it in flint, detroit, pontiac, or other location that industry left a community and there is already assets in place that you can use. If the executives dont like the idea of living near detroit or Gary, Indiana then they can get their money elsewhere.
  Yet again politicians doing things they should not because they trust corporations and people to be honest and "do the right thing". They dont, they never have.
  
  --
  Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
34. Re:Sincerity? by Provocateur · 2011-10-21 06:35 · Score: 1
  
  Greetings! It's OPPOSITE Day!
  
  --
  WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
35. Re:Sincerity? by nrozema · 2011-10-21 06:48 · Score: 1
  
  I'm not disputing the fact that they should return the money if they can't make good on their promise - but pointing to a bunch of other low volume US manufactured cars made by huge global automakers isn't really a fair or relevant comparison.
36. Re:Sincerity? by Grishnakh · 2011-10-21 07:07 · Score: 2
  
  I'm sorry, this doesn't sound right to me. It sounds like this Fisker company wanted a contract manufacturer to build the cars for them (didn't the article say this was the same plant used to make some Porsche model?), they didn't want to build an assembly plant from the ground up. Even if they took over some closed plant, they'd have to retool it ($$$), and hire and train a new labor force (time and $$$). It's not like there's thousands of skilled workers sitting around waiting for a job; when people get laid off, they move on, and building up a trained labor force isn't that easy.
  I know more about electronics; suppose I wanted to build 1000 units of some special electronic assembly. How would I do that? Simple, I'd find a contract manufacturer to do it for me. I'd do the design work with my own engineering staff, but I'd farm out the production work to other companies. I might get one company to make the PCBs, and a different company to "stuff" them for me, and another company to put them together into full assemblies, or I might get one company to do the whole thing (though they'd likely farm out portions of the work to subcontractors; frequently the PCB production and assembly stages are done at different places). I wouldn't want to build my own PCB production plant and PCB assembly plant just for a small order; that'd make no sense and would cost a fortune in capital equipment and labor.
  You seem to be vastly underestimating the capital costs and difficulty of setting up a manufacturing operation. There's a reason that contract manufacturing is popular for small-to-medium size production runs, and it's not because of "corporate greed".
37. Re:Sincerity? by Grishnakh · 2011-10-21 07:14 · Score: 1
  
  Yep, only on Slashdot...
38. Re:Sincerity? by nabsltd · 2011-10-21 07:17 · Score: 1
  
  based on supercar standards, this is pretty darn awesome.
  Not really. Although the torque is lower at 638 lb-ft, a Corvette ZR1 will get about the same highway mileage and over 50% more horsepower (638 vs. 400).
  Since torque is often based solely on the transmission (my car has a 350 lb-ft spec, while the same engine gives 420 lb-ft when married to a different transmission), I suspect that Chevrolet could get the same 960 lb-ft of torque if they chose to, but that it makes no difference to real-world performance.
39. Re:Sincerity? by Wyatt+Earp · 2011-10-21 07:21 · Score: 1
  
  What about Tesla as other posters have mentioned? Or contracting with a firm that already takes parts from global suppliers and puts them together like Hennessy?
  Because that is all Fisker is doing
  "Fisker Karma components
  The 22 kWh lithium ion rechargeable battery in each car will come from A123 Systems in Watertown, Mass.
  The aluminum frame was engineered by Fisker and is supplied by Norsk Hydro from Norway.
  The cabin interior is designed by Fisker Auto but made in USA by Magna International of Canada.
  The EVer powertrain system, technically a series hybrid, delivers over 400 hp, was inspired by Quantum Technologies (which is also a founder of & early investor in Fisker)."
  The Ecotec 2.0 L is a GM motor
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisker_Automotive#Outsourcing
  http://www.hennesseyperformance.com/
40. Re:Sincerity? by ravenshrike · 2011-10-21 07:32 · Score: 1
  
  Clearly they are planning on towing a very large trailer very quickly.
41. Re:Sincerity? by bberens · 2011-10-21 07:38 · Score: 2
  
  You really under-estimate the cost of hiring a full set of staff to run a place like that. The ramp up time before you can be productive is massively expensive. Your best bet is to find a place teetering on closing and then it's luck of the draw for timing, contracts, etc.
  
  --
  Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
42. Re:Sincerity? by bberens · 2011-10-21 07:41 · Score: 1
  
  I would add "what will come of the patents created with this subsidized money" to "will they be able to pay back the loan." But yeah, otherwise I think we agree.
  
  --
  Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
43. Re:Sincerity? by bberens · 2011-10-21 07:43 · Score: 1
  
  Our floor sweepers and Wal-Mart employees get decent wages too, it's just that a portion of it comes in the form of welfare from the government to keep the price tag in the stores low.
  
  --
  Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
44. Re:Sincerity? by Firethorn · 2011-10-21 08:35 · Score: 2
  
  Need to make a few hundred of something? Europe may be your answer.
  Need to make a few hundred thousand? USA.
  few hundred million? China.
  
  --
  I don't read AC A human right
45. Re:Sincerity? by cayenne8 · 2011-10-21 09:18 · Score: 1
  
  I imagine that they wanted to by-pass having to deal with the auto unions in the US (UAW)....that would be a major extra cost in time and overhead.
  I've not had a chance to verify this, but I thought I'd heard that Al Gore had a large interest in this company...if that is the case, seems strange a democrat involved in this type thing, especially since the unions are such a big part of the Dem's support base and money contributors.
  
  --
  Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
46. Re:Sincerity? by reboot246 · 2011-10-21 09:33 · Score: 1
  
  Al Gore a hypocrite? So it ain't so!
  
  Old Al will do or say anything for a buck. I bet he'd sell his own family members if he thought he could get away with it.
47. Re:Sincerity? by Kaenneth · 2011-10-21 10:01 · Score: 1
  
  So... what does Finland do with blind and mentally disabled people, to have zero illiterate people?
  Is it like the no gays in Iran?
48. Re:Sincerity? by zwede · 2011-10-21 10:11 · Score: 1
  
  I imagine that they wanted to by-pass having to deal with the auto unions in the US (UAW)
  I highly doubt that's the reason. Finland has much stronger unions than the UAW ever was.
49. Re:Sincerity? by element-o.p. · 2011-10-21 10:28 · Score: 1
  
  My point isn't that those who invest the time and effort will always be successful, but rather that those who do are going to have a much, much better chance of success than those who don't. Sometimes you get dealt a losing hand, and even the most skillful card player in the world can't pull out a win; but those who work hard to excel in their chosen field are almost certainly going to do better than those who simply trust to blind luck.
  
  Incidentally, I believe there is a logical fallacy here...:
  
  No matter how much time and effort you put into training a dog, it's not going to be able to write complex software. No matter how much time and effort you put into 100m running, you're not going to run faster than Usain Bolt.
  If I am a dog, I am not going to care about writing complex software; I am going to care about running the Iditarod, or retrieving ducks, depending upon what kind of a dog I am. And there is at least a chance that I will be very, very good at one of those things. Likewise, Usain Bolt probably had someone tell him that he would never be faster than whoever his best competitor was...and that person was wrong because Usain Bolt had a talent for running and worked hard to nurture and develop that talent. But I'll bet that I'm a better network administrator than Usain Bolt, because that is an area where I have some degree of skill. So you're right, no, not everyone can be faster than Usain Bolt...but you're also wrong because those who have a talent for running AND who expend a sufficient degree of effort developing that talent will have a much better chance of beating him than someone who simply expects to show up and receive the same reward, which is all I was saying in the first place.
  
  --
  MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
50. Re:Sincerity? by HornWumpus · 2011-10-21 10:33 · Score: 1
  
  My 1960 Chrysler Saratoga would roll over, or rather through, your tbird without slowing.
  You don't know what a land yacht is if you think a 86 tbird is even close. I bet that thing didn't even weigh 4000 lbs. Land yachts start at 6000. Big block V8s. Sub 10MPG.
  
  --
  John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
51. Re:Sincerity? by HornWumpus · 2011-10-21 10:54 · Score: 1
  
  You have a failing cell phone company. Aside from that you make some nice axes (perhaps actually made in China) and Vodka (credit where it's due).
  That makes you more advanced? We're not talking about per-capita Vodka consumption. Talk to us when your nation makes LEO without hitching a ride.
  Where do the chipsets that run most of those Nokia phones come from?
  
  --
  John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
52. Re:Sincerity? by tripleevenfall · 2011-10-21 11:44 · Score: 1
  
  I still don't understand. Can I get a hamburger analogy?
53. Re:Sincerity? by savuporo · 2011-10-21 14:47 · Score: 1
  
  AFAIK both are assembly plants, not the actual parts manufacturing plants. AFAIK Valmet actually manufactures a relevant portion of parts for Karma, plus does some of the assembly. When Fisker said they "couldn't find the facility" they meant parts manufacturing. Assembly you can pretty much do anywhere in the world, assuming workers are willing to be trained for the job and actually show up to work ..
  
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54. Re:Sincerity? by Man+On+Pink+Corner · 2011-10-21 15:22 · Score: 1
  
  Unless you're Ferrari, you are not going to make a profit building 1000-2000 cars at once. Starting up a factory just to meet that kind of production target would be insane. The logical strategy would be to start with a contract manufacturer who could build that kind of volume for a reasonable (if inflated) price, then scale to mass production once you've got some money coming in and can gauge the market. At that point your 1000-2000 car-per-year factory investment is worthless to you.
55. Re:Sincerity? by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-21 15:51 · Score: 1
  
  You'll find that they're making high end electric cars. That's not just a scam. You have no explanation for how a Finnish company can't find manufacturing in America that is easy to find. But you aren't interested in the reason, or anything else.
  For you Republicans, nothing matters except attacking "the other team".
  
  --
  --
  make install -not war
56. Re:Sincerity? by terjeber · 2011-10-21 22:28 · Score: 1
  
  I like your reasoning. They didn't want to deal with the UAW so the moved to a part of the world were unions are stronger labor is more expensive and production cost (like transport) is significantly higher. Yes, you "reasoning" is sound and solid.
57. Re:Sincerity? by terjeber · 2011-10-21 22:30 · Score: 1
  
  I like your reasoning. They didn't want to deal with the high expenses of doing things in the US, so they located the production in a part of the world were unions are stronger than in the US, labor is more expensive and production cost (like transport) is significantly higher. Yes, you "reasoning" is sound and solid.
58. Re:Sincerity? by terjeber · 2011-10-21 22:42 · Score: 1
  
  Hahahahahaha. Funny. Rocket science is, in fact, not rocket science. Putting an object into LEO is not a matter of technology, it is a matter of cost. Anyone can do it. Making a quality cell phone requires advanced technology however, and Nokia, failing or not, still makes some of the best cell phones out there (but are having a problem with the software, which is odd given that Linus is Finnish, anywho...).
  Using LEO as a measure of how technologically advanced you are made sense some time in the late 1940s, there is nothing fundamentally different (other than scale) from what used to put the space shuttle into space, and the V2, which the Germans finished in 1942.
  By all means, there is a lot of advanced technology in the US, but not at NASA. NASA has perfected the inefficient bureaucracy, not much else.
59. Re:Sincerity? by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-22 04:33 · Score: 2
  
  No, you're precisely wrong.
  This story turns out to be total BS. The DoE loan to Fisker was spent on American carmaking jobs. Fisker does also employ 20% of that amount in Finland, but the US public money was not spent on that. Fisker's successful use of the DoE loan employed 2500 Americans who were cut loose by American car corps during this recession, and started back up an American car factory where they work. Since it's successful, Fisker will be repaying the loan.
  The government invests money private industry wouldn't in a foreign corp creating American jobs. Increasing the transit tech overall, increasing the attractiveness of the industry to private investment. Making a profit on the interest.
  But none of that matters, because - surprise! - car corps are global enterprises. A foreign company getting US government investment also has some foreign expenses, but not ones paid by the US government.
  Nothing to see here. Unless you're a Republican, in which case the only thing you can possibly see is Democratic government corruption that doesn't exist.
  
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  make install -not war
60. Re:Sincerity? by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-22 04:36 · Score: 1
  
  You can imagine all you want. But this whole story is a lie designed to appeal to your Republican imagination and fear of actual facts. Fisker got US government money that it spent on US jobs, 5x as many as the foreign jobs as Fisker pays out of other Fisker income. A profitable investment private investors refused to try, so the American public gets not just the jobs and industry (and taxes on it), but also the interest on the loan.
  A victory. Victory is totally unrecognizable to you Republicans since all you can do or imagine is epic failures, for generation after generation.
  
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61. Re:Sincerity? by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-22 04:38 · Score: 1
  
  They didn't say anything of the sort. All they said was some BS about they thought they heard something about Al Gore investing in this company. Which probably isn't even true. But if it is, there's no hypocrisy in an environmentalist investing in an electric car company.
  You Republicans will do or say anything to attack a Democrat. I bet you'd sell your own family members if you thought you could blame Al Gore for it. In fact you have, by selling them to the Republicans' corporate sponsors - and then blaming Al Gore for those corporations' crimes.
  You Republicans are stupid and evil, especially the way you stick together on anything no matter how inane.
  
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  make install -not war
62. Re:Sincerity? by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-22 04:41 · Score: 1
  
  The business is paying off. The VP is getting nothing from it - except bragging rights, which he and his administration deserves.
  What makes this a "special sweet-heart loan"?
  
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63. Re:Sincerity? by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-22 04:50 · Score: 1
  
  Except Fisker's cars are built in the US by Americans, despite the BS that is all there is to this story.
  And, by extension, all there is to your assertion about US quality. Why do you hate America?
  
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64. Re:Sincerity? by hb253 · 2011-10-22 04:50 · Score: 1
  
  You must have driven a very different 86 Thunderbird. Mine was not a behemoth and got around 26 highway. Maybe you're thinking of the late 70's cars.
  
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  Self awareness - try it!
65. Re:Sincerity? by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-22 04:53 · Score: 1
  
  They are doing it.
  
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66. Re:Sincerity? by Grishnakh · 2011-10-22 05:21 · Score: 1
  
  Why don't you come back when you can find a contract manufacturer in the USA able to build a few thousand cars. It has nothing to do with labor expenses, it has everything to do with the availability of manufacturers. There aren't any here. Chrysler isn't going to let you borrow their production lines to build a small run of specialty cars.
  Obviously, you completely fail at reading comprehension.
  Here's another example for you: suppose you want to build a multibillion dollar cruise ship, like the new Norwegian Epic. Where are you going to go to do that? Should you go to the USA, where labor is cheaper (esp. in the Gulf Coast states), or should you build it in Finland, Denmark, or France? Well, Norwegian had theirs built in France. Why? Because there AREN'T ANY shipyards in the USA that can build ships that large. (Actually, there is one in Newport News, Virginia, but they're a military contractor that builds aircraft carriers, so they're busy with that, and frankly they don't have any experience building civilian cruise ships whereas the European shipyards do.)
67. Re:Sincerity? by Grishnakh · 2011-10-22 05:26 · Score: 1
  
  Sounds good, I was just arguing on the basis of contract manufacturing availability, and the fact that if it doesn't exist in a country, then it doesn't matter how cheap the labor is. If they actually started up a factory here, that's great.
  As for Democratic corruption, they're just as corrupt as the Republicans. If there's no corruption in this case, that's great, but it certainly does exist elsewhere. Don't fool yourself into thinking the Dems are any better on average than the Reps. They're all bunch of lying sacks of shit.
68. Re:Sincerity? by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-22 06:10 · Score: 1
  
  False equivalence. Of course there's some corruption among Democrats. But compared to Republicans... there's no comparison. This is easily recognized, but you have to be able to make the distinction. "Easy" != "zero effort". But the difference matters, as Republicans cover their tracks with "but the Democrats are the same". They're not the same.
  Democratic corruption is sustainable, though we shouldn't accept it and should prevent and punish wherever we can. But Republican corruption destroys the country, and the world with it.
  
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69. Re:Sincerity? by AmiMoJo · 2011-10-22 06:52 · Score: 1
  
  This isn't a super-efficient car, it's a sports car with hybrid engine in a similar vein to the Prius, only tuned for performance rather than fuel economy. If you compare it to other sports car with shitty gas mileage figures and note that the price limits it to people who don't really care about that sort of thing because they are rich but like the idea of driving a hybrid for dubious environmental reasons it makes more sense.
  In fact the plant where they will be built already makes some models of Porsche cars, and that is the market they are aiming for: rich people who treat cars as fashion accessories and/or erectile dysfunction treatment.
  I'm not saying it's a good car, just that their business plan isn't as stupid as the summary suggests.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
70. Re:Sincerity? by Grishnakh · 2011-10-22 07:03 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sorry, I don't see any real difference between them at all, except that the Reps pander to the religious far-right, and the Dems pander to the left. But when they're in power, the Dems don't actually follow through on any of their promises, and then just blame it on the republicans. Their policies are all the same: big wars, bailouts for big corporations, etc.
  http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/comics/128
  http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/comics/131
  http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/comics/133
  http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/comics/126
  http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/comics/125
71. Re:Sincerity? by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-22 07:20 · Score: 1
  
  The points made in those comics you linked to are either lies (like about Warren and Obama's jobs policies) or just more false equivalencies.
  On big wars, every Republican voted for invading Iraq, and only a few Democrats did. A Republican president actually invaded Iraq; a Democratic president declined for their 8 years and the next Democratic president both voted against it and is fulfilling their campaign promise to get us out. The last Democratic president to start a big war was JFK/LBJ, and the next Republican made it worse until Americans forced him out and ended it.
  On bailouts, Republicans were nearly unanimous in the majorities that deregulated the crash that required the bailout, while only a few Democrats participated. A Republican president and their Republican Treasury Secretary created the bailout, which was the only option left by that late date for a Democratic Congress to vote for, but the Democratic president and Democratic Congress quickly changed the bailout terms, cutting the costs and adding some limits. Democrats produced the only meaningful financial re-regulation, though it was severely diluted by the minority Republicans abusing their power to block government action.
  Maybe it's more accurate to say "Conservatives" instead of "Republicans", because most of the Democrats who are comparable to Republicans are just Conservatives - and all the Republicans are Conservatives. But that's just the reason that Republicans are without exception bad, while Democrats just have enough intolerably bad people to muddy the waters.
  Democrats do follow through on some, actually most, of their promises. Even if not enough, and they don't even promise enough. But Republicans always lie to get power, never honor their promises - except the ones to destroy what's good and necessary. Democratic blame of Republicans for failing to complete their promises isn't just an excuse. Republicans go to extreme lengths to stop Democrats, even enthusiastically damaging the whole country in attempts to make Democrats look bad, so Republicans can get power back long enough to do more damage.
  You have to be able to appreciate that even if one is bad and the other is totally, catastrophically bad, and neither is good, that doesn't make them equivalent. If you can't tell the difference between bad and devastating, then you're either not looking or you aren't really suited to accurate interpretations.
  
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72. Re:Sincerity? by terjeber · 2011-10-22 19:35 · Score: 1
  
  Seems I replied to the wrong post. Sorry.
73. Re:Sincerity? by Lumpy · 2011-10-23 08:16 · Score: 1
  
  General motors, Ford, Chrysler, and Tesla all will gladly do a short run custom cars in the 1000 car range. In fact it's done all the time for commercial vehicles.
  Bet you a cool million they did not even ask.
  
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  Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
74. Re:Sincerity? by Lumpy · 2011-10-23 08:23 · Score: 1
  
  News flash, there is no law in the USA that says if you make cars you must have the UAW.
  Learn about unions instead of assuming that it's a part of the constitution.
  
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  Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
75. Re:Sincerity? by Lumpy · 2011-10-23 08:24 · Score: 1
  
  Hi foaming at the mouth democrat.
  You need to clear the anger foam from your face, as you are foaming at another democrat, the dirty stinking republicans are further to your right.
  my point is that the Company owners are too stupid to know how to run a business.
  
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  Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
76. Re:Sincerity? by Grishnakh · 2011-10-23 09:37 · Score: 1
  
  The Republicans suck, there's no doubt about it. But what have the Democrats done to counter them? Nothing. They just go along with anything the Republicans want to do, and they say they're "compromising", or being "pragmatic", when they're really being just like Neville Chamberlain. So you have to wonder, are the Dems hopelessly naive fools like Neville, or any they really in favor of the same policies as the Republicans, but simply lie and say they aren't so they can get votes? If you look at actions instead of words, it's hard to see any difference between the two; it's only the words that differ.
77. Re:Sincerity? by terjeber · 2011-10-23 09:46 · Score: 1
  
  What makes you think that I think you must have the UAW? I know quite well that you don't. Still, if you do not have the UAW, the US is even more competitive in terms of labor. Why would they move the production to Finland where labor cost is significantly higher than in the US?
78. Re:Sincerity? by cayenne8 · 2011-10-25 05:03 · Score: 1
  
  But, from what I understand, you aren't forced to use union labor in Finland...a company has a choice and nobody will the 'whacked' like they might down here.
  
  --
  Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
79. Re:Sincerity? by terjeber · 2011-10-25 08:14 · Score: 1
  
  But, from what I understand, you aren't forced to use union labor in Finland
  That's irrelevant. There is no extra cost in hiring union labor. Unions in Scandinavia have long since made sure that union wages apply to everyone, unionized or not. Also, there is no minimum wage in Finland, the unions negotiate a minimum wage. This means that there is no realistic way of hiring people at below union wages. Not legally. All over time, that is beyond I guess 37.5 hours is paid plus 50% for the first two hours and 100% for every hour past that.
  There is also the vacation to take into consideration, a Finnish worker is entitled to 30 days of paid vacation (that is 30 working days, in other words six weeks) in addition to 14 paid holidays (that's just a day short of three weeks). So, in addition to being expensive hour-for-hour, the employer has to pay for nine weeks off for the Finnish worker. We have not yet talked about sick days, lots of those too, and the 281 days of (paid) parental leave available until your youngest child is three years old. Oh, and your job is guaranteed in that three year period.
  In other words, Finnish workers are expensive. Very expensive. The company did not move production to Finland because it was cheap. The US is one of the cheapest countries in the western world in which to produce stuff. The exception being GM and Ford until recently, who had a lot of old crap they had to deal with and that they had not set aside money for. That isn't applicable in this situation though, since the cars were not going to be produced by GM or Ford.
Fisker? by Third+Position · 2011-10-21 05:05 · Score: 3, Funny

The company name is "Fisker"? It's nice to see the American taxpayer getting exactly what he's paying for these days.

--
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
1. Re:Fisker? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-21 05:25 · Score: 1
  
  They also have a sibling company that is a TSA contractor, named "Fister"
2. Re:Fisker? by chispito · 2011-10-21 05:36 · Score: 2
  
  A simple, "... I hardly know 'er!" would suffice.
  
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  The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
oh, really? by superwiz · 2011-10-21 05:07 · Score: 4, Interesting

They couldn't find a facility? Wasn't the whole point of these programs to build new facilities?

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Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
1. Re:oh, really? by JBMcB · 2011-10-21 05:27 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  No, the point of the program is free money from the federal government. And the politicians can say they've invested $int64 billion dollars in environmental programs. They don't really care what those programs are, they just need to get rid of the money.
  
  --
  My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
2. Re:oh, really? by necro81 · 2011-10-21 05:37 · Score: 1
  
  They couldn't find a facility? Wasn't the whole point of these programs to build new facilities?
  Fisker has a facility in the United States - in Delaware. They will use this facility, much like Tesla is using the old NUMMI facility in SoCal, for their mass manufacturing. The problem, so Fisker claims, is that they wanted to use a contract manufacturer for their initial production run (presumably while getting their main facility running, and by debugging their mfg processes with the early production run), but could not find a suitable contract manufacturer in the U.S. It's not like just any ol' company can build a car, and those that can are already doing just that: they go by the names of Ford, Chrysler, GM, and Toyota.
3. Re:oh, really? by ArcherB · 2011-10-21 05:53 · Score: 1
  
  No, the point of the program is free money from the federal government. And the politicians can say they've invested $int64 billion dollars in environmental programs. They don't really care what those programs are, they just need to get rid of the money.
  They looked at environmental spending and said, "Something must be done!"
  Someone said, "Here, is something."
  Everyone said, "Then it must be done!"
  
  --
  There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
4. Re:oh, really? by CaptSlaq · 2011-10-21 05:58 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Along side BMW, Mercedes Benz, Subaru, Honda.... And a even larger number of small production stuff like kit car manufacturers and even more interesting manufacturers like Local Motors, saying that 'it couldn't be found' would take some explaining in my opinion.
5. Re:oh, really? by MrSmith0011000100110 · 2011-10-21 06:57 · Score: 1
  
  A question in earnest then. WHY ARE WE(the taxpayers in the US) PAYING FOR THIS? I, as a hard working tax paying citizen of the United States of America do not want my government to give $600 mil to some fucking car company. I do not want my government bailing out banks because they're too stupid to handle other people's money. I want my government to shoot people on my behalf and keep our country safe. I want my government to not give incentives to corporations for selling my job to India. Bottom line, I want the government to take care of a larger percentage of it's citizens. Because the richest 2% it's covering now isn't quite cutting it.
6. Re:oh, really? by superwiz · 2011-10-21 08:05 · Score: 1
  
  You've got to be kidding. Tax payer stimulus was spent on a production line oversees because they "couldn't find a facility" at home. The excuse presented is that "it was only for the initial production stage". And you think it takes someone with an ignorant hick accent to ask the question why is it that half a billion dollars is not enough to built a PROTOTYPE production line at home? That's your argument? The the opposition simply MUST have a hick accent? And you have the audacity to call someone else "uninformed"? That's
  
  --
  Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
7. Re:oh, really? by superwiz · 2011-10-21 08:07 · Score: 1
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chutzpah
  
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  Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
8. Re:oh, really? by gad_zuki! · 2011-10-21 09:04 · Score: 2
  
  Considering no US money is being spent on this plant and they have bought a Delaware plant for stage II, my comment on your ignorance still stands.
  Tesla managed to get around this issue by buying a retired Toyota plant in the US as a stopgap the same way these guys are using Finland as a stopgap.
  You can argue whether or not the DOE should be making these investments, but not finding a facility here in the US is perfectly understandable. Regardless, in a year or two they'll be in Delaware and Tesla will move to its permanent factory in Cali. Yet guys like you dont give two shits about this, because you just want to complain about the government, not really understand or care how electric car investment works, or why certain decisions are made. Took yer jerbs, indeed.
9. Re:oh, really? by superwiz · 2011-10-21 12:42 · Score: 1
  
  How are you missing the point that just because a facility doesn't exist (to be bought) does not imply that it cannot be built. The fact that stimulus money is spent on it is a direct indication that they have to be willing to pay EXTRA in order to go out of their way to keep this work in the US. They don't have the luxury of shopping for the cheapest solution if that means going out of the country AND taking taxpayers money to keep these jobs here. Your audacity of throwing slurs around, given how you miss a point of simple logic, is absolutely astounding.
  
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  Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
10. Re:oh, really? by superwiz · 2011-10-21 12:44 · Score: 1
  
  On the other hand, may be it's not astounding. Maybe you have simply bought into the leftist belief that the leftists are the smart ones and you can't let go of it regardless of the evidence.
  
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  Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
11. Re:oh, really? by lexman098 · 2011-10-25 04:26 · Score: 1
  
  His point from the beginning has been that it's probably not a good idea to build a brand new type of car in a brand new plant. You end up debugging the plant and prototype simultaneously which is stupid and inefficient.
Great by benjamindees · 2011-10-21 05:08 · Score: 5, Insightful

So, not only are middle class tax dollars used to bail out and ensure the bonuses of those capable of affording a $90,000 "green" sports car, but they're also used to subsidize the production of said sports cars in another fucking country.

--
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
1. Re:Great by YrWrstNtmr · 2011-10-21 05:18 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Because only USAians deserve jobs, remember.
  
  If it's with my USA money, then yes.
2. Re:Great by Quiet_Desperation · 2011-10-21 05:23 · Score: 1
  
  Did you even read the... oh, what am asking! Derp!
3. Re:Great by JBMcB · 2011-10-21 05:23 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  This isn't even the dumbest use of our money. We currently subsidize cotton farmers in Brazil, because the US was subsidizing cotton farmers in the southern states, and was found to be doing so in violation of free trade agreements by the WTO. So instead of cutting the subsidies to the US farmers, the US government also subsidizes Brazilian cotton farmers as a sort of pay-off. This isn't a small amount of money - it's in the billions every year.
  
  --
  My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
4. Re:Great by Tridus · 2011-10-21 05:26 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  That's what happens when you let politicians near money.
  
  --
  -- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
5. Re:Great by John+Bresnahan · 2011-10-21 05:30 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  It was a loan, so it will be repaid, and with interest.
  Just like Solyndra, I'm sure.
6. Re:Great by localman57 · 2011-10-21 05:31 · Score: 2
  
  You're off by like 10^ 8th. It's actually not "billion". It's Brazillion. We told them, "sure we're going to continue to subsidize our farmers. But don't worry, we'll also give you guys Fifty Brazillion Dollars a year to make up for it."
7. Re:Great by darth+dickinson · 2011-10-21 05:32 · Score: 1
  
  Assuming the company turns enough of a profit to repay said loans. It worked so well for Solyndra, after all...
8. Re:Great by element-o.p. · 2011-10-21 05:54 · Score: 1
  
  When paid for by U.S. taxpayers' money, YES!!!
  
  --
  MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
9. Re:Great by element-o.p. · 2011-10-21 05:56 · Score: 1
  
  Beat me to it, dang it.
  
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  MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
10. Re:Great by JBMcB · 2011-10-21 06:06 · Score: 1
  
  Is inflation still that bad down there? :)
  
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  My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
11. Re:Great by CaptSlaq · 2011-10-21 06:07 · Score: 1
  
  And Chrysler and GM. More recent analysis here.
12. Re:Great by Nom+du+Keyboard · 2011-10-21 06:08 · Score: 1
  
  It was a loan, so it will be repaid, and with interest.
  Yeah, right, tell that to Solyndra.
  
  Green energy makes no economic sense yet, if ever. If it made economic sense then we wouldn't have to subsidize it to heavily.
  
  --
  "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
13. Re:Great by Forbman · 2011-10-21 06:08 · Score: 1
  
  or AIG? Hmm... Is the US going to get back anything close to 1:1 what it gave to AIG to keep it afloat?
  Don Quixote called, and he wants his windmills back.
14. Re:Great by digitig · 2011-10-21 06:13 · Score: 1
  
  Nope, RTFA. Your tax dollars are being used to subsidise US jobs, the $529M isn't going outside the country.
  
  --
  Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
15. Re:Great by tmosley · 2011-10-21 06:52 · Score: 1
  
  We'll let them keep it if and only if the Finns open up a new car manufacturing plant on American soil paid for by Finnish taxpayer dollars.
16. Re:Great by Beeftopia · 2011-10-21 07:56 · Score: 2
  
  This isn't even the dumbest use of our money.
  
  Y'all don't know the half of it: Keywords: 'Waterfall TALF, Christy Mack, Susan Karches.'
  
  Basically, the Fed provided loans to a couple of Wall Street executive wives on terms which guaranteed them millions in profit, as part of the bailouts.
17. Re:Great by Beeftopia · 2011-10-21 07:58 · Score: 1
  
  That's what happens when you let politicians near money.
  And the damnable thing is, the tax money goes to companies which then turn some of it around and 'donate' it back to the politicians.
  
  Quite a circle jerk.
The DOE loan is for the Nina by rednip · 2011-10-21 05:10 · Score: 4, Informative

The DOE loan is for the Nina, it'll be built in An shutdown Saturn plant in Delaware. Not the Karma.

--
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
1. Re:The DOE loan is for the Nina by Cinder6 · 2011-10-21 05:14 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  FTA: "The loan to Fisker is part of a $1 billion bet the Energy Department has made in two politically connected California-based electric carmakers[...]"
  Sounds like it's both.
  
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  If you can't convince them, convict them.
2. Re:The DOE loan is for the Nina by rednip · 2011-10-21 05:16 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Sounds more like reactionary garbage from a once grand newspaper sullied by it's new ownership.
  
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  The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
3. Re:The DOE loan is for the Nina by pushing-robot · 2011-10-21 05:21 · Score: 1
  
  http://gigaom.com/cleantech/fisker-scores-529m-doe-loan-to-start-project-nina/
  Actually, the loan is for both vehicles, though the Karma was always intended to be assembled overseas.
  It's sad that anyone with Google and a couple spare minutes can do a better job of vetting stories than the Slashdot editors.
  
  --
  How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
4. Re:The DOE loan is for the Nina by obsess5 · 2011-10-21 05:22 · Score: 1
  
  The Green Car Reports link in the summary confirms this partly (it doesn't name the vehicle): "Work Funded: $169 million for engineering integration work on the Karma; $360 million for development of a mid-size extended-range electric vehicle, to be built in a former GM plant in Wilmington, Delaware"
5. Re:The DOE loan is for the Nina by lwriemen · 2011-10-21 05:22 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Two companies doesn't equal two cars. FTA: "Between them, Fisker, at $529 million, and Tesla, at $465 million, have secured nearly $1 billion to jump-start production of their cars." Fisker and Tesla are two separate companies.
6. Re:The DOE loan is for the Nina by mtrachtenberg · 2011-10-21 05:24 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Yes, the DOE loan is for the Delaware plant. This fact is well-known: http://www.examiner.com/electric-car-in-national/fisker-automotive-grabs-529-million-from-the-doe
  And that omission, soulskill, is either incompetent or dishonest.
7. Re:The DOE loan is for the Nina by Cinder6 · 2011-10-21 05:26 · Score: 1
  
  Sheesh, my bad. I was thinking Nina was from Tesla. Thanks for the correction.
  
  --
  If you can't convince them, convict them.
8. Re:The DOE loan is for the Nina by hawguy · 2011-10-21 05:29 · Score: 1
  
  No. Taxpayer money was put at risk for the benefit of a company in Finland. If the product and the company were plainly viable, there would be far more than the half billion dollars in US tax money racing to them from private investors all over the world.
  I thought that was the point of these government loans -- to back new technologies that aren't yet mainstream enough to attract private funding. Just because something isn't "plainly viable" doesn't mean that it's not worth doing. Even $90K electric cars can help drive innovation in the electric car space and new technologies and designs will trickle down into more affordable cars.
  Or, we could sit back and wait for the Chinese to do the innovation and use their manufacturing prowess to sell us cheap electric cars.
9. Re:The DOE loan is for the Nina by ScentCone · 2011-10-21 05:34 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Or, we could sit back and wait for the Chinese to do the innovation and use their manufacturing prowess to sell us cheap electric cars.
  Which is exactly how it turned out with solar panels, except the Obama administration put half a billion tax dollars on a bonfire in the Solyndra parking lots so we could be warm while we watched it happen. Of course, they rigged that financing situation so that a handful of private investors would get paid back before the taxpayers ... private investors who happened to be friends of and fundraisers for the Obama campaign. Classy, huh?
  
  Let private companies attract private fundraising for this sort of thing. And let only those people lose out if it's a waste. And if it's successful, let them be rich for having been smart about it (though being smart, and reaping those rewards is now an Eeeeeevil 1% thing to do - and we can't have that now, can we).
  
  --
  Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
10. Re:The DOE loan is for the Nina by rednip · 2011-10-21 05:34 · Score: 1
  
  This is an Obama administration fashion statement for rich lefties
  No, it's the reactionary media doing what it always does, feed lies and distortions to people just like you. Did you even once look up 'Fisker Nina'; that answer would be very telling.
  It's not surprising, you'all did the same thing with Clinton (and her husband) was President in the 90's. The GOP always seems to think that 'they win' when the American middle class loses, sad really.
  
  --
  The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
11. Re:The DOE loan is for the Nina by dr2chase · 2011-10-21 05:49 · Score: 1
  
  never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
12. Re:The DOE loan is for the Nina by MickyTheIdiot · 2011-10-21 06:02 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Using the word "socialist" without defending it is equivalent to the use of "communist" in the 1950s.
  In other words, it's meant as a personal attack and it is should be enough for any thinking person to tell you where you can shove your argument.
  There is no such thing as a pure economy... just different balances between unregulated capitalism and (actual) socialism.
13. Re:The DOE loan is for the Nina by Toonol · 2011-10-21 06:19 · Score: 1
  
  Using the word "socialist" without defending it is equivalent to the use of "communist" in the 1950s.
  
  There were communist spies and sympathizers in the 50's, actively trying to destroy the United States. Don't let McCarthy's excessive make you forget that fact.
14. Re:The DOE loan is for the Nina by asylumx · 2011-10-21 06:47 · Score: 1
  
  Did I accidentally click over to the Drudge Report or something? Leaving out facts like the one you pointed out should not be acceptable at Slashdot.
15. Re:The DOE loan is for the Nina by stilz2 · 2011-10-21 07:36 · Score: 1
  
  I think Slashdot needs to implement a system in which readers/mods can vote for a post (or a few, perhaps include counter to the counter) to be attached to the original submission that provides vital info the original submission fails to include. Too often, submissions that fail to include such vital info tend to render all subsequent discussions rather pointless (this may not be an example, but I'm sure you guys can think of plenty that are).
16. Re:The DOE loan is for the Nina by scot4875 · 2011-10-21 07:59 · Score: 1
  
  (though being smart, and reaping those rewards is now an Eeeeeevil 1% thing to do - and we can't have that now, can we)
  I often wonder: do people like you *really* misunderstand the situation this badly, or are you just being deliberately dense?
  Being smart and reaping rewards is not an issue. Reaping rewards and then manipulating the system using those rewards so you can be stupid and still reap rewards is the Eeeeeeevil thing to do.
  There is no fine line here. Quit misrepresenting your perceived opponents' position to make yourself sound more reasonable.
  --Jeremy
  
  --
  Jesus was a liberal
17. Re:The DOE loan is for the Nina by DNS-and-BIND · 2011-10-21 10:10 · Score: 1
  
  OK, sure, then stop using the word fascist. Oh, you won't be doing that, eh?
  
  --
  Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
18. Re:The DOE loan is for the Nina by ScentCone · 2011-10-21 15:20 · Score: 1
  
  do people like you *really* misunderstand the situation this badly
  No, I've got it just fine. People chanting about toppling businesses, tearing down banks, doing away with capital and investment as a way to launch and finance businesses, stamping their feet and defecating on police cars while complaining that rich people (who pay almost all of the country's income taxes, and who if taxed at 100% of their income would barely put a dent in the budget deficit) aren't paying their "fair share" ... all of that crap is coming through loud and clear - it's impossible to miss.
  
  What I'm hearing is greed. Greed to have more stuff, taken from the minority of the people who actually pay income taxes, and given out by the government to the majority, who pay little or (in the case of roughly 50% of the population) pay no income taxes at all. What's that about "fair share?"
  
  The latest greed from that camp is the fad for demanding that some clown's $150,000 debt for going to Harvard should be paid for by everyone but him, including a piece of every day's work (in the form of taxes) taken from a guy who understood basic math and opted to take advantage of his local community college, instead, and save six figures in absurd expenses.
  
  I'm seeing greed in the form of demands for "social justice" in the form of everyone getting the same stuff, whether or not they bother to work, and whether or not they have the drive to work two, or three jobs, or risk everything to start a business. Pure greed, born of an enttitlement mindset, and just as doomed to fail as every other urge in that direction has failed everywhere it is applied as policy.
  
  You don't like the fact that the Obama administration hasn't managed to find some basis for criminal prosecution of what you clearly understand to be plain-as-day-details of crimes on the part of some particular investment bankkers? They why aren't you calling for protests in front of the White House, or in front of the offices of the congressional representatives and senators that give that administration their support?
  
  --
  Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Fisker is from Scandinavia by Quila · 2011-10-21 05:13 · Score: 2

Maybe pushing work back to the home region?
1. Re:Fisker is from Scandinavia by jopsen · 2011-10-21 06:00 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Maybe pushing work back to the home region?
  I doubt the company have a secret agenda about pushing to Finland. Why?
  Manufacturing costs in Scandinavia is a lot higher, it's not uncommon for unskilled factory workers to make 25 USD per hour, not counting overtime, late hours etc.
  From the article:
  
  Henrik Fisker said the U.S. money has been spent on engineering and design work that stayed in the U.S., not on the 500 manufacturing jobs that went to a rural Finnish firm, Valmet Automotive.
  Seriously in the process of spending half a billion how much is 500 manufacturing jobs?
2. Re:Fisker is from Scandinavia by NatasRevol · 2011-10-21 06:07 · Score: 1
  
  it's not uncommon for unskilled factory workers to make 25 USD per hour
  Don't ever look at pay rates for unionized workers.
  
  --
  There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
3. Re:Fisker is from Scandinavia by Quila · 2011-10-21 06:11 · Score: 1
  
  When it's government money spent in a period of high US unemployment, 500 manufacturing jobs is everything.
4. Re:Fisker is from Scandinavia by Dahamma · 2011-10-21 06:42 · Score: 1
  
  Manufacturing costs in Scandinavia is a lot higher, it's not uncommon for unskilled factory workers to make 25 USD per hour, not counting overtime, late hours etc.
  US auto worker wages (UAW) are in the $30-$40 / hour range, so maybe it is cheaper there.
  Seriously in the process of spending half a billion how much is 500 manufacturing jobs?
  Plus the huge benefits to the local economy due to those 500 employed workers, infrastructure improvements needed to run a large factory, suppliers, etc. Something that size probably adds $100M/year to the economy where it's located.
5. Re:Fisker is from Scandinavia by SlippyToad · 2011-10-21 06:51 · Score: 1
  
  Don't ever look at pay rates for unionized workers
  Why, because there's something wrong with negotiating a decent wage?
  Or because unionized workers are less than human scum who don't even deserve minimum wage?
  I've never understood the jealous hostility towards unions. As their fortunes have waned, so have the rest of ours. And we've done it to ourselves, by following the gibbering right-wing stupidity of demonizing people who work hard for a living, and worshipping theives and phonies who fuck off and steal other people's efforts for a living.
  
  --
  One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
6. Re:Fisker is from Scandinavia by NatasRevol · 2011-10-21 07:22 · Score: 2
  
  $60/hr plus extraordinary benefits for unskilled labor is not a decent wage. Or in the same hemisphere as minimum wage.
  I don't have any jealous hostility, just a bit of shock at their greed.
  
  --
  There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
7. Re:Fisker is from Scandinavia by Antisyzygy · 2011-10-21 07:30 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, I agree with this. There is no reason an unskilled factory worker should make more than 20 an hour. Once you get your skill set built up, I don't see a problem with more. Keep in mind 20 an hour is common for most entry level skilled tech support jobs.
  
  --
  That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
8. Re:Fisker is from Scandinavia by csubi · 2011-10-21 07:36 · Score: 1
  
  25USD/h does not seem that bad compared to the $36/h average wage for UAW auto workers
9. Re:Fisker is from Scandinavia by turtledawn · 2011-10-21 08:55 · Score: 1
  
  I'm under $20/hr for a fairly well-skilled R&D tech position :-(
  
  --
  Uh, "if it looks roughly mouse-shaped according to my infra-red sensitive pit, eat it"? --Chris Burke 09-08-10
10. Re:Fisker is from Scandinavia by cayenne8 · 2011-10-21 09:24 · Score: 1
  
  I have a feeling that these jobs were done in Finland to avoid having to deal with the US auto workers unions in large part.
  Hell, look what the UAW has done to US auto makers...damn near killed them.
  And now...they actually pretty much own a couple of them now....
  
  --
  Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
11. Re:Fisker is from Scandinavia by manaway · 2011-10-21 09:39 · Score: 1
  
  Seriously in the process of spending half a billion how much is 500 manufacturing jobs?
  If you're unemployed, it keeps you employed for years. If you run a grocery store, 500 families shopping is what keeps your doors open for years. If you run a local restaurant, 500 families occasionally eating keeps your wait and kitchen staff employed. Same with furniture stores, local shops, plumbers, charities, and various others. You have 500 vacationing families, 500 tax payers. 500 families living a decent life (for various levels of "decent").
  The 500 million was an investment, which (possibly) pays off and increases production over time. Unless the investment is moved off-shore. Sure it's good for people in Finland, just like it would have been for people in Delaware. Which shows you can't just divide 500 million by 500 jobs and think you have a meaningful answer. Seriously.
12. Re:Fisker is from Scandinavia by mark_reh · 2011-10-21 09:43 · Score: 1
  
  That's $60 per hour when they are working. American companies throw people out into the street at the drop of a hat. If you average out an autoworker's pay over a year or two you'll probably find a number close to minimum wage.
13. Re:Fisker is from Scandinavia by Antisyzygy · 2011-10-21 09:55 · Score: 1
  
  I was too when I worked at an RA in computer vision. 14 an hour I believe, but they wouldn't pay me for more than 20 hours even though they demanded about 40 so it was much less.
  
  --
  That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
14. Re:Fisker is from Scandinavia by cthulhu11 · 2011-10-21 15:50 · Score: 1
  
  ... and yet they complain that their jobs are moved out of the country (or that the USPS wants to cut Saturday delivery). Hmmmm, maybe there's some cause & effect there ...
15. Re:Fisker is from Scandinavia by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-22 04:54 · Score: 1
  
  You need a union.
  No, I'm not being sarcastic. Employers don't pay what the work is valued. They pay what they're forced to pay. Unions force employers to pay more of the value the workers produce. Because without unions, workers aren't at all as organized as the employers.
  
  --
  --
  make install -not war
16. Re:Fisker is from Scandinavia by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-22 04:55 · Score: 1
  
  Your feeling is wrong. As is this whole story that's nothing more than Republican propaganda.
  
  --
  --
  make install -not war
Tesla Roadster Comparison by lymond01 · 2011-10-21 05:14 · Score: 1

Not sure of the Fiska car is a sports car...it'd better be for $100K. But if you're interested in comparing the MPG between the two, the Tesla Roadster Wikipedia entry has an interesting breakdown of how it's calculated for electric cars. Short answer is it's about 123 MPG, but it's more complicated than that.
And a handy tidbit: apparently the replacement battery for the Tesla (7 years or 70,000 miles) is $12,000. And a funny story: getting off the ferry back home, a Tesla Roadster was parked on the curb with an attendant (probably the guy driving it onto the boat for the owner). Some young adults were unlocking their bike right next to it and they tipped over and missed it by about an inch. What happens when you accidentally scratch a $100,000 car? I'm assuming the owner just deals with it -- I mean, if you can toss $12,000 at a battery replacement, you likely can afford the insurance premium for a buff and paint job.
1. Re:Tesla Roadster Comparison by GameboyRMH · 2011-10-21 05:17 · Score: 1
  
  And a handy tidbit: apparently the replacement battery for the Tesla (7 years or 70,000 miles) is $12,000
  Wow, seriously? That's a steal!
  Elise (or AW11, or whatever) - engine + electric motor + replacement Tesla pack = Tesla Roadster for the middle class!
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
2. Re:Tesla Roadster Comparison by jasno · 2011-10-21 05:24 · Score: 1
  
  Shit, I just modded.. ah well.. gotta respond to this.
  Anyone who has equity in their home should really consider bumping up your insurance and adding an umbrella policy.
  I work around the corner from an exotic car dealer, and a few months back I found myself behind a $1.5 million Bugatti Veyron. One slip of the foot and everything I own would be gone in a poof of carbon fiber dust.
  I just got a quote for $1mil coverage(about $220/year on top of my normal premiums), bringing my auto coverage to $1.25 mil. Sure, it won't quite cover the Veyron, but should cover the lambos and bentleys.
  
  --
  
  http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
3. Re:Tesla Roadster Comparison by dr2chase · 2011-10-21 05:57 · Score: 1
  
  No kidding. Years ago, in Menlo Park, I saw the result of a parking lot accident where a teenage driver backing up a large Mercedes sedan (with mom in the passenger seat) stepped on the wrong pedal and smashed a Sentra and a Jaguar. Not a lot of happy faces there.
  Sometimes it makes more sense to just avoid the hazard. There was a large tree in our back yard that was distinctly tilted towards a neighbor's house, and it was starting to look less healthy. We spent almost 11 years of your insurance increment to have it cut down, but I still think that was the right choice.
Maybe the instructions on how to build the car ... by PolygamousRanchKid+ · 2011-10-21 05:18 · Score: 1

... are written in Finnish?

--
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-21 05:18 · Score: 1

Meanwhile, right-wingers call the OWS movement a bunch of entitled hippies.
uhhh... So a democrat president and a democrat congress both throw money at these companies and it is the GOP's fault? Interesting theory...
Hybrid that gets 20MPG?? by Amigan · 2011-10-21 05:22 · Score: 5, Insightful

So for $89K you get an electric vehicle that doesn't go as far as the Chevy Volt (which costs $40K)? As a hybrid, it gets the equivalent of 20MPG? I thought the goal of the electric car was to do better than the gasoline powered vehicles. Tesla at least is all electric and has that wow factor. What was the business model that allowed the US Government to invest $500+M??

--
"Software is the difference between hardware and reality"
1. Re:Hybrid that gets 20MPG?? by Bardwick · 2011-10-21 05:28 · Score: 1
  
  "I thought the goal of the electric car was to do better than the gasoline powered vehicles. " In the U.S. hybrid cars run on coal, not electric :).
2. Re:Hybrid that gets 20MPG?? by Attila+Dimedici · 2011-10-21 05:29 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  What was the business model that allowed the US Government to invest $500+M??
  That's easy. The primary investors in this company donate copiously to the campaign coffers of Democratic Party politicians.
  
  --
  The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
3. Re:Hybrid that gets 20MPG?? by ShavedOrangutan · 2011-10-21 06:31 · Score: 1
  
  Why would anyone who could spend $89k on a car be concerned at all about the fuel economy?
  
  --
  Godaddy is a scam and a ripoff.
4. Re:Hybrid that gets 20MPG?? by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · 2011-10-21 07:21 · Score: 1
  
  To be fair it is because the Dems are in power now. Previously it was because primary investors in the company donate copiously to the campaign coffers of Republican Party politicians. The correct term is crony capitalism and both parties do it.
  
  --
  Time to offend someone
Re:Excellent by GameboyRMH · 2011-10-21 05:22 · Score: 1

Who said it was the GOP's fault?
Maybe that's why right-wingers hate OWS, they assume OWS supports the Democrats, on whose term they're protesting (???).

--
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Obama is a by Spy+Handler · 2011-10-21 05:23 · Score: 2, Insightful

proponent of the power of state, and believes that more of it, the better. He is a proponent of command economy, as evidenced by his goverment allocating economic resources according to ideology, rather than market realities.

How else to explain giving government money to these firms?
1. Re:Obama is a by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-21 05:47 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Every president is a proponent of the power of the state. Especially liars like Ronald Reagan and Bush/Cheney, who expand state power to everyone's serious injury as they claim to avoid it.
  You want an actually sensible explanation? You got it.
  
  --
  --
  make install -not war
2. Re:Obama is a by jgdobak · 2011-10-21 07:24 · Score: 1
  
  If all of these decisions were made according to market realities, Little Timmy would still be putting in sixteen hours a day in the coal mine and farms would still be worked by human chattel.
3. Re:Obama is a by Alaska+Jack · 2011-10-21 10:22 · Score: 1
  
  Ha ha. I looked at the linked comment, and was about to come back and write that that was the first time in the history of Slashdot that someone looked to DOC RUBY, of all people, for a "sensible explanation." It wasn't until then that I realized that the linker WAS Doc Ruby! Oh Doc, you magnificent bastard. - AJ
Re:Excellent by nedlohs · 2011-10-21 05:25 · Score: 1

There was no attribution of fault for throwing money given to the GOP or the democrats.
They wanted a contract manufacturer by Animats · 2011-10-21 05:27 · Score: 1

Being a "fabless automaker" doesn't work all that well. You can get exotics made that way, but it's too expensive for a production product.
Tesla's great achievement was that they finally made a usable, fun to drive electric car. It's overpriced, but it does work. I see them on the road all the time in Silicon Valley. I hope Tesla can actually get their sedan product to profitability. Tesla was lucky to pick up the NUMMI plant cheaply; they got a modern small car auto assembly plant in good condition, although it's far bigger than they need and they're only using part of it.
There are plenty of defunct auto plants for sale in the US. Of course, those are the ones auto companies decided they didn't want to keep. Most of them are huge plants full of very specialized but obsolete machinery for making engines, transmissions, or body stampings in huge quantity. GM also dumped two assembly plants, both of which are for making pickups, SUVs, and Suburban/Hummer sized vehicles. Nobody wants those.
Are You Surprised? by Nom+du+Keyboard · 2011-10-21 05:28 · Score: 1, Insightful

Are you really surprised by any of these payouts to completely uneconomic green (as in money) projects by BHO? Do you notice the pattern of $500 million loans? There seem to be BHO Big Bundlers involved in each of them. A Big Bundler is someone who gathered together at least $500,000 for the Obama campaign. Pretty good ROI here: Invest $500,000 and get back $500,000,000.00. We are being robbed by these Progressives on a grand scale never before seen in this country -- and there are still people who just can't wait to vote for this clown again!

And to add insult, their first Fisker $97K car only gets the equivalent of 19MPG -- the same as the average SUV. Damn, I'm mad.

--
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
1. Re:Are You Surprised? by Joce640k · 2011-10-21 05:47 · Score: 1
  
  And to add insult, their first Fisker $97K car only gets the equivalent of 19MPG -- the same as the average SUV. Damn, I'm mad.
  You need to compare it to the Lambos, Ferraris, etc. in it's market segment. See how economical they are...
  
  --
  No sig today...
2. Re:Are You Surprised? by Wyatt+Earp · 2011-10-21 06:18 · Score: 1
  
  "The Karma's two 201 brake horsepower (204 PS) motors produce 1,300 newton metres (960 ftlbf) of torque, more than the Bugatti Veyron at 1,250 Nm (920 ftlbf). The Karma features a 125 mph (201 km/h) top speed and is capable of reaching 60 mph (97 km/h) from a standstill in 5.8 seconds."
  Except for the torque, the specifications of the Karma are not supercar specs, but more like Camaro or Mustang V-6 specs
  5th Generation Camaro V-6 - 19 mpg city 30 mpg hwy - 0-60 6.0 seconds
  5th Generation Camaro V-8 - 16 mpg city 24 mph hwy - 0-60 4.7 seconds
  At the price, the Karma costs as much as a Corvette Z06 - 15 mpg city 24 mpg hwy - 0-60 3.6 seconds
  So the Fisker does not perform at it's price point.
3. Re:Are You Surprised? by CrimsonAvenger · 2011-10-21 06:21 · Score: 1
  
  You Republicans never said a word while Bush/Cheney and your Republican Congresses were stealing $TRILLIONS.
  Citation?
  It should also be noted that the Obama administration has run up more deficit in three years than Bush Jr did in eight.
  
  --
  
  "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
4. Re:Are You Surprised? by ArcherB · 2011-10-21 06:29 · Score: 1
  
  You Republicans never said a word while Bush/Cheney and your Republican Congresses were stealing $TRILLIONS. Except to blame everyone else, if you did admit it. You would vote for Bush/Cheney again. And indeed you will, when the Rombot or whatever standin comes up for auction next November.
  You Republicans are stupid and evil. Proven every chance you open your mouths or cast a vote.
  Citation Needed. I know, I know, you are going to say Haliburton, right? Can you name another company that could do Haliburton's job? Didn't think so.
  Also, I find it strange that I could graduate with 3.5 GPA without breaking a sweat and I give my money and time to various charities. Yet, here I am a Republican, which means I am "stupid and evil."
  Finally, two wrongs don't make a right. Even if I were to grant your point that Republicans did the same thing and that Republicans were "stupid and evil" for continuing to vote Republican while remaining silent to blatant corruption, wouldn't that make you and other Democrats equally "stupid and evil"?
  Logic is a bitch, ain't it?
  
  --
  There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
5. Re:Are You Surprised? by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · 2011-10-21 08:09 · Score: 1
  
  I wish I hadn't commented already as this needs to be modded up.
  
  As a side note the Karma's numbers seem closer or possibly worse than the real world numbers (except for torque) of my 1997 BMW 540i with 223,000 miles on it that I paid $10,000 for 4.5 years ago (It only had 101,000 on it when purchased). Granted it does have better numbers than my recently purchased 1996 Jeep Cherokee with the 190hp 4.0L engine and 368,000 miles on it but even that stupid thing gets just over 21mpg, but I only paid $600 for that.
  
  --
  Time to offend someone
6. Re:Are You Surprised? by Wyatt+Earp · 2011-10-21 08:25 · Score: 1
  
  The Fisker Karma really comes across, stat for stat, as a terribly overpriced sub performing automobile, except for raw torque.
  And when in battery mode, it only has a 50 mile range, after that you have a 4000+ pound car run by a 2.0 L Ecotec.
  One could get into a CTS-V coupe, 14 mpg city, 19 mpg highway 0-60 in 4.2 and still save nearly $30,000
  Or a new M3 and save $26,000
7. Re:Are You Surprised? by Reziac · 2011-10-21 12:17 · Score: 1
  
  Doesn't even sound good compared to my fullsized pickup, which got 20mpg when it was new (not so new now, 33 years and 208,000 miles) and probably weighs double what this newfangled car does.
  
  --
  ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
8. Re:Are You Surprised? by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-21 15:32 · Score: 1
  
  The money in the Obama deficit comes from pumping cash back into an economy that Bush/Cheney and your Republican Congresses stole for 6-14 years in power. Because just in time for Election Day 2008 the money literally ran out. Without Obama's bailouts and stimulus (that cut back the Bush/Cheney TARP into something productive and manageable) , unemployment would be double or triple, the dollar would be worth what the Deutsche Mark was worth in 1933, and you wouldn't have the Internet to lie about it... or a light bulb.
  Or do you think the rest of us are so stupid as to believe that everything was just hunky dory until suddenly Democrats retroactively deregulated the banks and sold all those credit default swaps?
  Stupid and evil. Rhymes with Republican.
  
  --
  --
  make install -not war
9. Re:Are You Surprised? by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-21 15:36 · Score: 1
  
  Literally $TRILLIONS just on the wars you Republicans lied us into, before we even get to the $TRILLIONS in bank.
  You evidently got an A in false equivalence. Your GPA and your charity donations don't change the fact that your Republicanism is irredeemably stupid and evil.
  Goodbye.
  
  --
  --
  make install -not war
Both are highly politically connected... by Shivetya · 2011-10-21 05:28 · Score: 3, Insightful

Green is new the buzzword for hiding payments to political allies.
http://dev.publicintegrity.org/2011/10/20/7152/energys-risky-1-billion-bet-two-politically-connected-electric-car-builders
As in, Fisker is connect to an Al Gore group and Tesla is connected to Google leaders who are major fund raisers for ......
So just like Solyndra, none of this was about viability, this was all about who is connected to whom, follow the money. It is nothing more than politics as usual

--
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
fail by anonieuweling · 2011-10-21 05:31 · Score: 1

I see:
- limited range
- low fuel economy
- high price
- See http://mindset.ch/de/?page_id=75 for an alternative
Is this supposed to be irony? by roc97007 · 2011-10-21 05:33 · Score: 2, Insightful

I can't really tell from the wording... was "PR Success" meant as irony?
These specs seem to be really poor -- $100K price tag, only slightly less than the high-end Tesla sports car, 32 mile electric range, which the Roberts Electric Car built in 1896 beats by 20%, and 20 MPG on gasoline, which my F150 truck beats by 13% on the freeway. Do the people of Finland really have such low standards?
All this for $592M in US tax money for a product that doesn't create a single US job. This is a success that makes up for the failure of Solyndra?
And now we're calling the Solyndra bankruptcy, with it's loss of more than a half billion dollars of taxpayer money, a PR failure??
Seriously?

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Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
1. Re:Is this supposed to be irony? by roc97007 · 2011-10-21 05:35 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I really have a bad feeling about this. It's like people are using environmental issues to launder massive amounts of cash.
  
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  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
2. Re:Is this supposed to be irony? by TubeSteak · 2011-10-21 06:11 · Score: 1
  
  All this for $592M in US tax money for a product that doesn't create a single US job.
  You're wrong.
  The loan is for a different car (Nina) that the company will be manufacturing in Delaware.
  Though their manufacturing date has slipped from 2012 to 2013.
  In 2016 they'll be moving production of the Karma (now made in Finalnd) to Delaware.
  Further, we're talking about a loan, not a grant.
  So unless Fisker goes bankrupt, the US won't have really lost anything.
  Technically there is an opportunity cost, but the government isn't really limited by that,
  as part of what the government does is fund projects the private market isn't interested in.
  This story is a hatchet job, plain and simple.
  The facts I've laid out have been available for a loooong time
  
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3. Re:Is this supposed to be irony? by element-o.p. · 2011-10-21 06:25 · Score: 1
  
  No doubt. I was rather surprised -- and not in a good way -- by the specs, myself.
  
  For comparison, my Suzuki V-Strom (admittedly, with only half as many wheels =) gets between 40 and 60 miles per gallon, depending upon how hard I twist the throttle, and cost less than 10% of the cost of this car, even including all of the aftermarket accessories I've added to it.
  
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4. Re:Is this supposed to be irony? by roc97007 · 2011-10-21 08:12 · Score: 1
  
  All this for $592M in US tax money for a product that doesn't create a single US job.
  > You're wrong.
  Fair enough. Since you appear to be knowledgeable about this, are the specs for this vehicle ($100K each, 32 mile electric range, 20 MPG on gasoline) also wrong? Because with those specs, this part:
  > Further, we're talking about a loan, not a grant.
  > So unless Fisker goes bankrupt [emphasis mine], the US won't have really lost anything.
  ...seems extremely likely, as this appears to be a Lada at Tesla prices. Unless the government is planning to be the primary customer.
  
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  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
5. Re:Is this supposed to be irony? by PintoPiman · 2011-10-21 11:07 · Score: 1
  
  Man, the number of things wrong with your statement is astonishing. Like truly impressive error-to-sentence ratio...
  The car goes a bit faster than the first electrics and has the added weight of modern amenities like airbags and pillars and all that. The relevant stat when comparing to your F150 is the mpge, and in that area it dominates your truck. The company is American, not Finnish, so any low Finnish standards wouldn't have anything to do with anything.. The R&D and design were done in the US, only the manufacturing was done in Finland, so there are US jobs. The loan was not for the halo car, it was for a cheaper version which is to be constructed at a plant in Delaware. Finally the half a billion for Solyndra, while totally shitty, can be put in perspective as the cost of a day or two in our 10 year old wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  Did I miss anything?
6. Re:Is this supposed to be irony? by PintoPiman · 2011-10-21 11:08 · Score: 1
  
  I really have a bad feeling about this. It's like people are using environmental issues to launder massive amounts of cash.
  That sucks, but I'd prefer that to the previous method, which was using wars to launder WAY more massive amounts of cash. A half a billion is a day or two in Iraq and Afghanistan.
7. Re:Is this supposed to be irony? by roc97007 · 2011-10-21 18:12 · Score: 1
  
  > The relevant stat when comparing to your F150 is the mpge, and in that area it dominates your truck
  ...for the first 32 miles. After that, the gas mileage is pants.
  
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  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
8. Re:Is this supposed to be irony? by roc97007 · 2011-10-21 18:14 · Score: 1
  
  I know, right? My Harley is rated at 55 MPG but realistically gets 42 to 49. And even Harley riders would cough at the cost of this monstrosity.
  I still get the horrible feeling that we're being taken for a ride, and not in a good way.
  
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  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Finally... by ackthpt · 2011-10-21 05:33 · Score: 1

You can run over someone's Dogma with your Karma.

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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Re:Whelp, that investment didn't work out by John+Bresnahan · 2011-10-21 05:38 · Score: 3, Informative

Also, it's just a flat out lie to make the title "$529M DOE Loan". It's a loan guarantee, not a loan. The taxpayers are in no way on the hook for anywhere close to $529M.
That's not how it worked with Solyndra. They borrowed the half-billion, using the government loan guarantee as collateral, and then declared bankruptcy, leaving the taxpayers on the hook for replaying the loan.
Re:Boy, it's great being a taxpayer in America. by Joce640k · 2011-10-21 05:39 · Score: 1

This is a drop in the ocean compared to the money given to GM so it could carry on losing money as fast as it ever did.

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Electricity is relatively cheap here, etc. by F69631 · 2011-10-21 05:39 · Score: 1

Wages are high but the cost of electricity is relatively low. I have no idea how big expense that is compared to wages but I'd guess that it amounts to something?
In any case... Let me be the first Finnish person here to say: Thank you. Fiskers is hiring also software developers over here and I've considered applying. If I will and if I'll get the job, I'll try to remember where my paycheck is coming from. :)
The government is a horrible venture capitalist by Quila · 2011-10-21 05:42 · Score: 1

Of course we're going to pour billions into companies, having no venture capital experience, and even without a proper vetting process that will be adhered to.
(Dis)credit to Bush for signing this into existence, but Obama's corrupt administration of course had to make it worse. His own people told him Solyndra was a bad investment, but he and Chu were chummy with the owners and it was a big political "green" score. It went through anyway even before legally mandated evaluations were finished. Any VC firm operating like this would be out of money fast.
I'm sure Solyndra was only the first. We'll be seeing more.
How These Government Investments Work by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-21 05:42 · Score: 4, Interesting

Electric car investment is clearly necessary. Without the investment, no electric cars. Private industry has had the opportunity for years, but blew it off in favor of gas guzzling SUVs and other trucks with suspended emissions regulations that it could sell to a market greased with fakeout balloon credit. That bizmodel crashed the car industry, while helping to drive up gas prices to $4+ and oil prices to $120+ - and made the Greenhouse even worse faster. Only when the public bailed out the US car industry (to save the rest of the US economy and industrial base) did it start to turn to serious electric product development.
But it's not enough. And because a lot of strategic progress hides behind multiple risky options, private industry (and finance) doesn't invest in it. Because those normal investors don't know how to invest in anything - which is why the entire investment industry had to get bailed out by the public. So the electric car investments have to come from the public, too.
Now, those investments are risky, as I said. Not too risky to do any of them, but too risky for each one to pay off. And when the government invests, it's far more efficient for it to invest in larger single investments, because managing a lot of little ones is beyond the ability to centrally plan and organize, especially given the volume and complexity of reporting and oversight that comes with any government contract. And then some of these investments will fail. Big ones will lose a lot of money.
Which is why private investment is better. Except private investment isn't doing it. Even before the Credit Bubble crashed, across many different bubbles (and even sustained growth), private investment wasn't doing it. Yet if we don't do it, either our resources and pollution crises will damage us more than the cost of the investment, or a foreign government will do it in ways that hurt us to help them, or most likely both.
So the government will have some Solyndras. It will have some Fiskers. Just as private investment would have had, though probably overall less wasted investment because there is so much more transparency (even if not enough) than when private investors make their deals - and fail. Plus government investment tends to take other policies, like US labor growth, into account that private investment ignores or worse. Not all the time, as is perhaps the case here with Fisker, but more than when private investment does it. Which, again, it is not doing here. And government investments, even when the commercial venture fails, tend to produce more usable lessons learned (and tech spun off) than private failures that usually keep the intellectual value suppressed in some new owner, or just left to rot entirely without a new use.

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1. Re:How These Government Investments Work by ArcherB · 2011-10-21 06:34 · Score: 1
  
  Electric car investment is clearly necessary. Without the investment, no electric cars... Only when the public bailed out the US car industry (to save the rest of the US economy and industrial base) did it start to turn to serious electric product development.
  Did Toyota take a government hand out to make the plug Prius? Yet, the Prius exists. I recall that the Volt was on the drawing board long before government bailouts. Also, Ford didn't take any bailouts, yet they make several hybrids.
  I didn't read the rest since your first paragraph was so full of shit, I didn't care to see what you buried underneath it.
  
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2. Re:How These Government Investments Work by ShavedOrangutan · 2011-10-21 06:51 · Score: 2
  
  When fuel prices hit $4/gal (US), Gas Hybrids were flying out of the dealerships. 10 year old used Honda Insights were selling for what they cost new. You couldn't give away an SUV. No government interference needed.
  
  That's capitalism.
  
  Peak oil has already hit, right? The market will take care of this with no need for tax payer subsidy.
  
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3. Re:How These Government Investments Work by Nemyst · 2011-10-21 07:25 · Score: 1
  
  The market takes care of problems when it's already too late.
4. Re:How These Government Investments Work by ShavedOrangutan · 2011-10-21 08:00 · Score: 1
  
  You might also remember all the SUV owners who suddenly couldn't afford gas and the auto makers who - after years of insisting on SUVs - started going broke. That is pure market, and it brings the pain. Want a prosperous society? Dig your well before you get thirsty.
  Yes! This is the problem! Government interference in the private market.
  
  GM and Chrysler should have gone bankrupt. When the companies reemerged, they would have been prepared to make vehicles to meet the new market.
  
  As it is today, they still mostly make the same large bloated vehicles and I STILL can't buy the compact diesel pickup that I really want. They'll crank out SUVs until the next oil bubble and there will be President Pelosi to pump in the subsidies, further interfering with the natural order of business.
  
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5. Re:How These Government Investments Work by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-21 08:00 · Score: 1
  
  Toyota is not an American company. The Volt was on the drawing board only because American car corps scammed out of 1990s California requirements for zero-emissions percentages of their fleets sold in CA to be allowed to sell any cars in CA by dragging out drawing board phase projects like the Volt. Which GM tried to recall once the laws were effectively dodged.
  Hybrids are not electric cars, they're just more fuel efficient gas cars. Ford is a little better than GM and Chrysler, and failed a little softer so didn't take bailouts.
  BTW: You are an asshole. Goodbye.
  
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6. Re:How These Government Investments Work by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-21 08:02 · Score: 1
  
  But investors didn't give their money, and we're stuck without enough electric vehicle development.
  With government it's jobs, tech development, strategic industry development, and all the income and taxes that come with it. That's a lot more than you're saying. Because you're a Republican, and you people never have government money for anything but killing.
  
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7. Re:How These Government Investments Work by jayveekay · 2011-10-21 08:02 · Score: 1
  
  Electric car investment is clearly necessary. Without the investment, no electric cars.
  If you define the problem as "Needs more electric cars" then I agree that with your solution of investing more money in electric cars.
  However, if instead you define the problem as "We need to reduce fossil fuel use because fossil fuel use causes global warming, widespread environmental damage, finances terrorism and dictators, and causes money to be wasted on military adventurers overseas" then the solution is to increase taxes on fossil fuels and let the free market determine how best to reduce the consumption (e.g. communities of people living closer to work/shopping, mass transit, bicycling, more fuel efficient vehicles, electric vehicles).
8. Re:How These Government Investments Work by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-21 08:08 · Score: 1
  
  GM and Chrysler were both bailed out. Other than Ford, that's the US car industry. And since dealers, parts manufacturers, and all the related economy paid by GM, Chrysler and their manufacturers and dealers were bailed out, Ford was left with a functioning infrastructure without bailing it out itself, which would have required a bailout. Likewise the foreign brands that manufacture in the US. To say nothing of the bailed out incomes of the millions in the car industry, which gave money keeping all brands, foreign and domestic, supplied with paying customers the past 3 years.
  Consumers aren't much better than private investors when it comes to funding industrial development. Especially when they're getting sucked into the Credit Bubble for SUVs and other trucks, and subsidized gasoline. The gasoline vehicle economy was rigged against consumers buying electric cars on the true economics. That's how the oil/vehicle/banking cartel organized our fake economy, which was more a market for subsidies and financial speculation than for products. Which is why it crashed, which makes it even harder for consumers to buy the first generation of electric vehicles. Unless government intervenes, the whole thing stays crashed, and just crashes everything else harder. Welcome to post-Soviet Russia, or any other post-crash anarchy.
  
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9. Re:How These Government Investments Work by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-21 08:09 · Score: 1
  
  You're the same Republican who is first to whine that 47% of Americans don't pay Federal taxes. Those are the poor people you're talking about, who don't pay for investment in electric vehicle development. But whose various other subsidies and cyclic job creations are funded by those investments.
  Of course you Republicans don't get any of that. You're the ones who gave us the crash economy.
  
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10. Re:How These Government Investments Work by HornWumpus · 2011-10-21 11:18 · Score: 1
  
  Battery technology was paid for mostly by laptop customers. To some extent cell phones but they are not as power hungry as a rule.
  The car companies are just takers of this technology.
  If they succeed, they will add to the market forces pushing batteries forward.
  
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  John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
11. Re:How These Government Investments Work by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-22 04:26 · Score: 1
  
  Gasoline engines are 15-25% efficient.
  The electric grid is 75-95% efficient.
  We are simultaneously working to replace coal generating electric with geothermal, wind, solar and other sustainable energy sources. Which are mostly well suited to onsite generation, without the grid at all.
  Now shut up.
  
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Global Democracy... by ElitistWhiner · 2011-10-21 05:43 · Score: 1

One loan at a time!
Re:Who cares? by Shompol · 2011-10-21 05:43 · Score: 1

...but the skyroketing national debt used to finance the war is still with us.
Re:Excellent by Jawnn · 2011-10-21 05:45 · Score: 1

Fail. Clearly, you "don't understand" reality.
No money was "given" to GM. Get your facts straight, then try and put together a coherent argument.
Re:Excellent by icebraining · 2011-10-21 05:46 · Score: 1

He's talking about Democrats, not the left.

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Re:Who cares? by Joce640k · 2011-10-21 05:48 · Score: 1

One of the wars might be over. Most of the action is in Afghanistan these days.

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Re:Broken window fallacy by JSBiff · 2011-10-21 05:49 · Score: 1

Wait, how is this the broken window fallacy? The broken window fallacy is the idea that replacing something which is perfectly good (e.g. breaking a window so that it must be replaced with a new window), contributes to economic growth.
I'm not sure how I see this fits the current story?
Re:Boy, it's great being a taxpayer in America. by Noughmad · 2011-10-21 05:55 · Score: 1

Which, in turn, is a drop in the ocean compared to the money spent on war.

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Second of many government backed failures by sp3d2orbit · 2011-10-21 05:57 · Score: 2

After Solyndra there will be more failed green energy companies backed by socialist spending. One of my client's, a silicon crystal grower, is busy buying up equipment from green energy companies as they liquidate and pay back the original investors using taxpayer money.
Unpopular as it may be with the Slashdot crowd, the government is not smart enough to pick winners. The government should not be in this business. Taking tax money to invest in initiatives like this is at best foolish and at worst theft.
This was $529 million dollars taken from Americans and given to Obama's cronies. Where did that money come from?
Top 10% of earners: ~$365 million dollars
Top 50% of earners: ~$520 million dollars
If that money had not been taxed and wasted it would have been wasted mostly by those in the upper middle class and the rich. It would have gone to support private schools, yoga teachers, golf courses, 5 star restaurants, designer stores, etc. Each of those business provides jobs and incomes for the service industry: the bottom 50% of earners.
If you want to create more jobs in America then stop taxing Americans.
1. Re:Second of many government backed failures by dragonjujotu · 2011-10-21 06:36 · Score: 1
  
  Agreed. I also agree with Ron Paul's proposal to cut the departments of the government whose sole purpose seems to be giving out said loans.
  
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2. Re:Second of many government backed failures by im_thatoneguy · 2011-10-21 10:06 · Score: 1
  
  There's actually a pretty solid line of reasoning that I've heard from economists that failures fuel innovation.
  Your client, a silicon crystal grower, may not have gotten 'picked' as a loan investment but he does benefit when a failed pick liquidates their equipment at firesale prices.
  For instance Tesla (another government 'pick') has benefited enormously from the NUMMI firesale.
  As to your "Government is not smart enough to pick winners"... maybe not but the free market isn't reckless enough to properly fund potential winners. Sometimes you need to waste money to seed new industries. The government 'wasted' money on the aviation industry initially as well. Through the first and second world wars we invested huge sums of money in aviation R&D. Jet aircraft then were commercialized out of that "waste".
  Capitalism is amazing at reducing prices and finding efficient production means. The problem is that sometimes you need to just dump a huge amount of money on a problem to get it going. And for good reason it's risky business--which is difficult to capitalize. There's a huge downside and almost no up-side for profit.
Tesla sued Fisker, too by G3ckoG33k · 2011-10-21 05:57 · Score: 1

Tesla sued Fisker in 2008, for a car design: http://green.autoblog.com/2008/04/15/breaking-tesla-sues-fisker-over-electric-car-design/
Tesla sued TopGear in 2011, for a car review: http://www.iol.co.za/motoring/industry-news/tesla-losing-top-gear-court-challenge-1.1162112 "Tesla losing Top Gear court challenge"
See the spectacular Jeremy Clarkson review the Tesla in 2008 and compare it with its car design origin (Lotus Elise) http://www.spike.com/video-clips/c3neux/top-gear-reviews-the-tesla-roadster
Tesla sues who next?
Re:Education by MickyTheIdiot · 2011-10-21 05:58 · Score: 1

They also haven't screwed their people up to the point where Manager and Executive are the only jobs that people think deserve a living wage.
Re:Excellent by MickyTheIdiot · 2011-10-21 06:05 · Score: 1, Informative

Before you make an argument like that, maybe you should go listen to Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter. They believe that everything up to and including every act of god is caused by the liburils.
God forbid we include actual FACTS in our arguments.
Comment removed by account_deleted · 2011-10-21 06:10 · Score: 1

Comment removed based on user account deletion
Invest in research, not production. by gstrickler · 2011-10-21 06:11 · Score: 1

A government should not be investing in commercializing technologies, that's what businesses are for. Gov't should only fund research to develop technologies to the point that they appear to be viable for commercialization, then let private investors take the risks of actually producing and commercializing the product. We're investing in the wrong things. In some cases, a gov't may invest it or subsidize the development of infrastructure (e.g. roads, communication lines, power lines, railroads, water supply and sewer systems), but never in production facilities that will not be owned and operated by the gov't (e.g. a city water district may build a water and sewage treatment facility that they will operate).

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Re:Maybe the instructions on how to build the car by stubob · 2011-10-21 06:11 · Score: 1

They could take a lesson from IKEA and ship the parts to build the car to the U.S. It would be one hell of a big box, though.

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It's the "car" part that's depressing. by dr2chase · 2011-10-21 06:12 · Score: 1

It was interesting, back when we had that sharp spike in the price of gasoline (2007?), that there was sort of an uptick in the number of people commuting on bikes around here (Boston area). The let-the-market-work way to encourage this sort of investment is to boost the price of gasoline somewhat, and then let consumers make their choices. Maybe it would be more bicycles (they're really cheap compared even to cheap cars), maybe it would be more carpooling (there's startups already attempting to sell services to match people up for carpooling), maybe people would just move closer to their jobs.
Re:Whelp, that investment didn't work out by ArcherB · 2011-10-21 06:22 · Score: 1

I also find it suspicious that the summary doesn't mention that this is a sports car. The price and fuel efficiency suddenly look a lot better when you compare it to a Corvette instead of a Civic. It may in fact be very successful in that market. But this point gets no mention... it's almost as if the submitter is a right-wing troll.
Are you friggin kidding me? The Obama administration gives a SECOND half billion dollar loan to a "green" company that has ties to Democratic contributors and bundlers. The first one failed. The second is building it's product overseas.
And you're seriously OK with this? Something tells me you'd be throwing a fit if this "loan guarantee" was given to Haliburton when Bush was in office.
BTW, can you point me to a single company that has received this type of half billion dollar "loan guarantee" that has ties to Republican contributors and bundlers?
From the Loan Guarantee Wiki Page:

The term can be used to refer to a government to assume a private debt obligation if the borrower defaults. Most loan guarantee programs are established to correct perceived market failures by which small borrowers, regardless of creditworthiness, lack access to the credit resources available to large borrowers.
Right. This guy can go to the bank and say "gimme a loan. The US taxpayer has cosigned". If he defaults, the US taxpayer pays it. Just as if the US government loaned him the money, if he defaults, the US taxpayer pays it. There is no difference other than that the US taxpayer doesn't have to put the money upfront and won't see any interest in the event that the loan is paid back. Meaning we take all the responsibility and see none of the benefit.
So, it's "a flat out lie to make" it seem like a loan guarantee all that different than a direct loan.

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Oh come on by SmallFurryCreature · 2011-10-21 06:26 · Score: 1

You know how an infinite amount of monkeys can write Shakespear?
Well, you can get a slashdot editor with just 1 monkey. One that has donated its brain to science... and then died.
And don't forget that oh so reliable source and who owns it.

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MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
1. Re:Oh come on by Sponge+Bath · 2011-10-21 10:34 · Score: 1
  
  You know how an infinite amount of monkeys can write Shakespear?
  I think you need another monkey.
Why do you hate low skilled workers? by HornWumpus · 2011-10-21 06:29 · Score: 1

If their legally required pay exceeds their value they will not be hired.

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John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
1. Re:Why do you hate low skilled workers? by HornWumpus · 2011-10-21 10:46 · Score: 1
  
  You really don't get it do you? People produce things of economic value. They are not the only ones producing these things. There value is set in a market.
  If someone can't produce enough value to cover their cost they won't be hired. Someone (or something) else will be.
  No amount of wishing will change these facts.
  Now regarding the cleaning lady. We do this wrong today. Offices contract cleaning companies who pay very, very little _knowing_ their employees will make it up in theft. This is just plane stupid. Office managers don't need to buy into some stupid 'living wage' bullshit to realize it's cheaper to find honest cleaning staff and pay them the extra value that honesty brings. Cleaning contractors will never hire honest workers. Both the contracts and workers are all fly by night. Perverse economic incentives etc.
  $2000/month? $800/month? People worth $800/month can't find work as it is much less then minimum wage. Proves my point.
  
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  John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
2. Re:Why do you hate low skilled workers? by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-22 04:52 · Score: 1
  
  We tried it your way for centuries before the minimum wage laws. It sucked, and Americans didn't want America to suck that bad.
  You do. Why do you hate America?
  
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Re:Maybe the instructions on how to build the car by Luckyo · 2011-10-21 06:32 · Score: 1

One of the reason why Valmet and similar finnish companies can work the way they do is because everyone and their grandmother at least understands decent english around here.
20mpg for a generator? by atari2600a · 2011-10-21 06:36 · Score: 1

Either the drivetrain motor has the efficiency of a drunk guy falling over or they're using the 2-strokiest lawnmower engine available & saying it's a turbocharged 4-cylinder 4-stroke.
1. Re:20mpg for a generator? by atari2600a · 2011-10-21 06:41 · Score: 1
  
  okay I really should have took 30 seconds to re-read that before submitting...
Re:Whelp, that investment didn't work out by ShavedOrangutan · 2011-10-21 06:37 · Score: 1

A Corvette has substantially better fuel economy. Of course, the Fisker weighs almost as much as a Hummer.

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He never should have gotten the loan by WindBourne · 2011-10-21 06:42 · Score: 1

The guy was well known that he was going to keep the work in Europe. Yet, DOE loaned that idiot money? DOE's iodicy is making them look like it is ran by a bunch of neo-cons. Horribly inept.

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Re:Excellent by GameboyRMH · 2011-10-21 06:42 · Score: 1

Huh, the same assumption out of nowhere. It's like it's hardwired into the right-wing brain.
See here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2488174&cid=37795058

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"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Re:Boy, it's great being a taxpayer in America. by tmosley · 2011-10-21 06:51 · Score: 1

Well, more like a large sea in an ocean, but point taken. We should stop the wars too.
Good Enough for Porsche by dafz1 · 2011-10-21 07:03 · Score: 1

The company in Finland, Valmet Automotive, currently builds the Boxster and the Cayman for Porsche. If you want to build a sports car, but don't have a factory to build it with, Valmet is probably a good option.
Buying an antiquated former "Big Three" factory is a giant waste of money. Example: the former Chrysler Engine Plant in Kenosha, WI is going to cost $13 MIL in environmental clean-up. At least that's what they're estimating right now. Who's going to pay for that? The State of WI and the federal government.
1. Re:Good Enough for Porsche by Beeftopia · 2011-10-21 08:04 · Score: 1
  
  Isn't the purpose though, to help Americans? It's great to help the world, but not when you've got 9+ percent U3 unemployment (16-some percent U6).
  
  I'd much prefer a 'boondoggle' like retooling a broken down Chrysler factory, as it puts US citizens to work. And while injecting money in the US economy is like injecting water in a bucket of holes - it goes to other countries - it does increase the water level a little bit.
Free Trade my butt by gr8_phk · 2011-10-21 07:51 · Score: 1

Does Brazil have a minimum wage as high as ours? Do they have to comply with EPA regulations? Do any countries we claim to have "free trade" have the same burdens? I'm not saying those regulations are bad, just pointing out that it's not really free trade because of them. This is part of the reason the jobs are leaving the US.
1. Re:Free Trade my butt by JBMcB · 2011-10-21 08:12 · Score: 1
  
  You're right, that's what you negotiate when laying out the free trade agreements. The US and Brazil agreed to not subsidize cotton farming. The US did it anyway.
  Another interesting tidbit - some of the subsidies were intended to spur the cotton growing industry in western Texas. Western Texas has a terrible climate for cotton growing. It's like subsidizing grapefruit production in Montana. You could do it, but why?
  
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  My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Fisker... by PGGreens · 2011-10-21 07:51 · Score: 1

Don't they make scissors? Pretty high quality scissors, actually. Oh wait, different company.
Valmet by lgordon · 2011-10-21 08:17 · Score: 1

Valmet is a contract automobile manufacturer. In the early years, almost all Porsche Boxsters went through final assembly at Valmet. The engines were produced in Stuttgart.
Re:Broken window fallacy by JSBiff · 2011-10-21 08:18 · Score: 1

Oh, I guess I see what you're saying. I'm still not convinced it's really the broken window fallacy, but I do think you have a point - that money was there, and would have been spent or invested anyhow if the government didn't do it, and quite probably, would have been spent/invested more efficiently/wisely by the private sector. I quite agree about that.
Additionally, since the government borrows a significant ratio of the money it "spends", taxpayers have to pay interest on the money, which we wouldn't have had to do if the original holders of that money had invested/spent it directly.
The double-edge of Economies of Scale by JSBiff · 2011-10-21 08:24 · Score: 2

"The only US bids received stated that they assumed we had made an error in the RFQ, and actually required quantities in the tens of thousands. These suppliers relied on a manufacturing process which required that scale and would result in prohibitively expensive unit costs for a production run of mere hundreds."
The downside of "economies of scale". You're right, I'm sure. Sometimes, in order to make lots of stuff cheaply, you have to give up the ability to make small amounts of stuff cheaply.
1. Re:The double-edge of Economies of Scale by AliasMarlowe · 2011-10-22 04:59 · Score: 1
  
  The downside of "economies of scale". You're right, I'm sure. Sometimes, in order to make lots of stuff cheaply, you have to give up the ability to make small amounts of stuff cheaply.
  It's not so simple. It seems that many US manufacturers are not investing to keep up-to-date with process developments, and thus risk becoming uneconomical on any scale, except where transport costs or locality/residency are critical. The manufacturing process in question is essentially unheard-of in the US. The standard response was "WTF is that?" when we asked US suppliers if they used the process, and we always had to describe how that process worked, as they were unfailingly unfamiliar with its commonly-used names and acronyms. It's been around for perhaps a decade in Germany and appears to be commonly available in Finland.
  Scale is a limited help in this instance. On order quantities of 10000+, some suppliers in the US would be barely cheaper per unit than what we're paying per unit for small quantities to the supplier in Finland. Others would actually be more expensive unless their price could be improved through haggling. On order quantities of 100, the cheapest US price increases by almost two orders of magnitude (most of the US price is the equipment customization). We have not inquired whether the Finnish price would improve if we ordered larger quantities, since large quantities are of no interest to us.
  FWIW, the difference in price between the cheaper US suppliers and the Finnish supplier is actually negligibly small at current exchange rates, but we would have preferred a US supplier for reasons of geographical convenience, legal convenience, and currency exchange risk. This preference would overcome a significant price premium, but not a premium of an order of magnitude or two.
  
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  Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Soulskill Needs To Add Story Correction by cmholm · 2011-10-21 08:35 · Score: 3, Informative

It's not uncommon for /. editors to add a story update when significant new information comes to light, or there was a major f-up in the original. This is one of those times, Soulskill. I know a lot of stuff rotates through your in-box, and you got suckered by @theodp. You need post the correction:
- Fisker Karma, made in Finland, no DOE loan.
- Fisker Nina, to be made in Delaware, with DOE loan.

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Luke, help me take this mask off ... Just for once, let me butterfly kiss you with my own eyes.
1. Re:Soulskill Needs To Add Story Correction by Suomi-Poika · 2011-10-21 21:29 · Score: 1
  
  Yep too bad this is already buried too deep in Slashdot. As a Finn I am really astonished when I see the ignorance of some people here. Delusional people who refuse to research this themselves. Fisker decided to start production of Karma in Finland 2008. That was more than year before your DOE started selling its loan to them. George W. Bush was the president of USA when Fisker signed final assembly contract of Karma (13.11.2008).
Give back our money NOW! by zymano · 2011-10-21 08:36 · Score: 1

Give it back.
Sue them.
Take it from them by force.
That money was taken by me by force.
1. Re:Give back our money NOW! by PintoPiman · 2011-10-21 11:11 · Score: 1
  
  You've been trolled, my friend. The halo car was made in Finland, but the loan money wasn't for that. It was for the Nina, a cheaper version which is to be produced in Delaware. That may or may not result in a repayment of the loan, but the Finnish situation is a red herring. Now take a deep breath and step away from the keyboard.
How busy were they? by Firethorn · 2011-10-21 08:51 · Score: 1

I'm not sure that the first four companies listed would be willing to help build a competitor's car in one of their facilities without a more extensive partnership, that they're set up for such limited production runs, etc...
As for local motors - are they set up to build whole cars by the thousand? Do they have the excess capability available? Do they have the tools/equipment to transition to constructing electric hybrids without extensive reworking?

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I don't read AC A human right
Which donor was this? by argontechnologies · 2011-10-21 14:56 · Score: 1

Obama pays another donor? All this political payback is getting really expensive.
A Lada at Tesla prices by roc97007 · 2011-10-21 18:17 · Score: 1

...just sayin'...
Performance poorer than decades-old standards, prices up in the F22 range... This almost sounds like a government project. Oh, wait...

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Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Re:Boy, it's great being a taxpayer in America. by Stormtrooper42 · 2011-10-21 19:54 · Score: 1

I may be wrong, but since it is a loan guarantee, I would say no taxpayer's money has been spent on this. Yet.
Re:Boy, it's great being a taxpayer in America. by Doc+Ruby · 2011-10-22 05:00 · Score: 1

GM's profit has risen strongly and steadily ever since Obama bailed them out with the public's money.
You're a stupid liar.

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make install -not war
One for the team! by YaddaMinski · 2011-10-22 07:41 · Score: 1

Hey! I am Finnish stock. Thx US gov! Finland can use the handout!