Who says you can't get rich designing beautiful cars.
For instance take a look at the Fisker Karma (above) which is the initial luxury plug-in hybrid designed by Fisker.
The cars not for sale yet but the company says it has 1200 orders for the car which offers a hybrid system that, "makes it entirely possible that
Karma drivers who charge their car overnight and commute less than 50
miles a day will achieve an average fuel economy of 100 mpg
(2.4L/100km) per year." according to the companies web site."
But now Fisker says it plans on building a smaller and cheaper car that will be partially financed by the half billion dollar government loan and in the process will create up to 5000 new local car jobs.
The $528.7-million low-interest loan "is another critical step in making
sure we are positioned to compete for the clean energy jobs of the
future," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
According to today's press release Fisker will use some of the money on project Nina:
"The second stage includes a $359.36 million ATVM loan for Fisker's
Project Nina, involving the manufacture of a plug-in hybrid in the U.S.
Fisker estimates that up to 75,000-100,000 of these highly efficient
vehicles will roll off assembly lines in the U.S. every year beginning
in late 2012. The combined projects are anticipated to create thousands
of jobs in the U.S. and provide substantial support for domestic parts
suppliers saving or creating approximately 5,000 jobs.
Earlier this year, the DOE gave conditional loan commitments to Ford ($5.9 billion), Nissan ($1.6 billion) and Tesla Motors ($465 million). The money comes from the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) Loan program, according to autoblog.com
