

Car Company Gets U.S. Loan, Builds Cars In Finland - hariis
http://news.yahoo.com/car-company-gets-u-loan-builds-cars-finland-172441546.html

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pg
A good example of why companies should avoid taking government money if they
can: even if the government doesn't impose a lot of restrictions on you
upfront, the press will retroactively.

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tomjen3
Does it matter? I mean sure some people will hate you but properly not enough
to lynch you. I would it imagine it would be worse for a start-up to be
unknown that to have free publicity, even if it was negative.

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pg
I don't know how much it matters, to be honest. Depends how big a distraction
it is for the company. E.g. I'd guess this news story is not the last they'll
hear about it. Republicans will presumably use this as a stick to beat the
administration with.

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thrill
Should they not?

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pg
I don't know that either. I don't know any details of this case. My point was
just that it will be a distraction for the company if they do.

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hugh3
I have moderately high hopes for Tesla, but I really can't see Fisker being a
success.

It's weird-looking, expensive ($100K), has a very limited electric range (32
miles) and is incredibly fuel-inefficient (20mpg) once the battery runs out.

Furthermore, unlike Tesla, they don't seem to have a firm plan to proceed from
a low-volume luxury model to a higher-volume cheaper model.

Besides, Tesla seems to have the rather limited "I'm a rich dude who wants to
show how much I care about the environment by driving around in an expensive
electric car" market sewn up pretty well. And the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt
are far cheaper, generally better, and I'd trust 'em a lot more.

The only real question is how many Karmas will get built before Fisker goes
bankrupt taking $528 million of US taxpayer money with it.

Car manufacturing is a really hard business to break into. If you look at the
world's big car companies, they've practically all been around since the
1920s, and possibly slightly before. Kia was founded in 1944. I can't think of
any companies (aside from offshoots of existing car or related motorized
equipment companies) that have been sucessfully founded since the end of WW2.

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tomfakes
I am willing to stand up to be a customer of Fisker, but not of Tesla.

I have places I go that are > 200 miles from home. I want to drive my fun car
to these places. The Tesla can't do this. I can never be a customer of Tesla's
with this restriction.

I will be buying the convertible Fisker Karma if they ever get to the point of
selling it!

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hugh3
You'd be much better off getting, say, a Nissan Leaf for local journeys and a
Porsche Boxster (or whatever fun car you like) for longer trips.

You'll have better fuel economy and about $20K in change.

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tadfisher
I wish you could just rent a generator on a trailer. A single-speed turbine
should still win for highway efficiency.

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hugh3
Well, you can rent a trailer and you can rent a generator, so I don't see any
reason why this wouldn't work!

Could be fun to try driving a Tesla transcontinentally with a trailer and...
however many generators it would take to keep it running.

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jdherg
Ish. According to a response article* , the DOE loan is earmarked to only be
used for spending within the US. The company in question also has a Delaware
plant that they bought from GM and are in the process of hiring for and
upgrading.

* ( [http://www.grist.org/cleantech/2011-10-21-the-facts-on-fiske...](http://www.grist.org/cleantech/2011-10-21-the-facts-on-fisker-the-medias-latest-faux-scandal) )

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tomfakes
This headline could be changed to be: Car maker builds cars in Finland, gets
US loan _guarantee_ to build cars in US and create US jobs

Maybe it's a bit long for a headline

This _news_ is also 2 years old!

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hugh3
What _is_ a loan guarantee, anyway?

Oh, I looked it up. Apparently it's an assumption of the risk if the company
defaults. So if I'm understanding this correctly, from the US Government's
point of view it has all the risk of giving them a loan (we're on the hook if
they default), with none of the upside (if they pay it back we don't get the
interest). Right?

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brown9-2
Well the upside is that the lender develops successful technology that has a
big impact on the economy and the movement away from reliance on oil.

It's subsidized research.

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OstiaAntica
It is corruption, a form of "venture socialism" where politically connected
donors get money with no-strings-attached. It's heads I win, tails, the
taxpayer loses. This form of government-driven investment is a dramatic
departure from 200 years of American tradition. Nobody really noticed because
a lot of these programs were created by George W Bush, with Democratic
support, and the media cheerleading anything "green".

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Retric
There are plenty of examples of these types of government backed deals.
Disneyland being one of the most famous that nobody talks about but the
tradition predates 'corporations' with the 'East India Company' being the both
the first example of a large multi-national company and probably the most
blatant example. Some of this is infrastructure like oil pipelines, but
homestead land grants are both classic American expansionism and free handouts
at the same time.

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OstiaAntica
You are mistaken. Disneyland is a classic private entrepreneurial tale. Walt
Disney sold his home to finance the park.

<http://www.mackinac.org/7164>

Homestead land grants cost taxpayers nothing and went to small family farmers.
That's nothing like half-billion dollar taxpayer loans directed by politicians
in Washington.

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Retric
Homestead land grants cost taxpayers _LAND_.

After the film, it was explained that for Disney World, including EPCOT, to
succeed, a special district would have to be formed: the Reedy Creek
Improvement District with two cities inside it, the City of Bay Lake and the
City of Reedy Creek (now the City of Lake Buena Vista). In addition to the
standard powers of an incorporated city, _which include the issuance of tax-
free bonds, the district would have immunity from any current or future county
or state land-use laws._ The only areas where the district had to submit to
the county and state would be property taxes and elevator inspections.[1]

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_World_Resort>

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hariis
Considering this, I think it is a good move, "He said the decision,
ultimately, was to help prevent his company from following the path of
Solyndra, which exhausted nearly all of its loan money on a high-tech solar
manufacturing plant in Freemont, California. "

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OstiaAntica
Fisker's other plant is in Joe Biden's Delaware.

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jakeonthemove
I'd seriously consider getting a mid-sized electric SUV, but these small sport
cars are just plain useless. However, I understand that for novel products
like electric cars it's best to start by marketing them to people who can
afford them and who can influence others to buy them...

And the headline is just misleading (like most headlines on Yahoo News): not
only did the company say they've spent the money in the US, they actually
can't spend them outside the country...

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TMK
Yahoo. More work here for vehicle builders!

