Saturday, October 29, 2011

You Loaned A Company $529M So They Could Make A Sportscar For Multimillionaires

... but at least it is (mostly) all-electric. Don't you feel better now? Our Monks of Miscellaneous Musings have a video of the fellow who received our cash donations, err, loan.

In any case, meet the Fisker Karma.
Business partners Henrik Fisker and Bernhard Koehler are visibly on edge. While they want to dedicate every ounce of their focus on this all-important launch of their first baby, the 2012 Fisker Karma, their attentions are being constantly pulled away from it by big conference calls regarding the money and logistics of launching the whole Fisker Automotive franchise. Are they really and truly answering a $95,900-$108,900 question with this bold effort that enough people are asking? ...

By late 2009, Fisker Automotive was coming out of essentially a nine-month hiatus during which Lucifer rose from Hell and swallowed mankind whole. Or so we thought. But investors finally felt like investing again, and just short of half a billion bucks had been promised to our heroes, much of this attracted by the imminent huge loan being talked about from the Department of Energy. Everything rode on that razor edge – not just for the Karma itself, but also for any future plans. That $529 million loan from you and me came through in September 2009 and Fisker Automotive went directly from vaporware to a $1 billion, fully-funded company with big cigar-chomping (but from sustainable tobacco farms) plans.
What's it look like, you ask? Try this.


$529M buys a whole lot of neighborhood drug rehab work and repairs on rundown schools. It can provide scholarships to deserving, underpriveleged kids. It can be given back to businesses who employ people. Best of all, it could be not borrowed in the first place. $529M can do a lot of things.

Right now it's building $100K sportscars. In Finland. For rich ecofreaks.

Awesome.

3 comments:

Kelly the little black dog said...

I think if you can afford a 100 K sports car, by definition your not an Eco freak.

Actually sort of sounds like Delorian's story.

Doo Doo Econ said...

Finally a car for trust fund liberals who don't work and the "I am green, sex please" losers.

Dean said...

Thanks for the link, KT!