Michael SatterfieldFisker’s received a shot in the arm today thanks to the U.S. Energy Department’s announcement that the upstart automaker will receive a $528.7 million conditional loan. The DOE says the loan, “will create or save about 5,000 jobs for domestic parts suppliers.” Highlights of the DOE’s announcement include confirmation that the money will go towards “two lines of plug-in hybrids” and that at least some of those jobs will be “to manufacture a plug-in hybrid in the U.S.” Fisker will perform final assembly of its first car, the high-cost Karma, in Finland.
When we spoke with company head Henrik Fisker about a less expensive back in January, he told us once DOE funding came through, it wouldn’t take long to get the lower-cost plug-in hybrid on the road. The DOE loan specifies that $169.3 million is to be used for engineering integration costs, working primarily with U.S. suppliers to get the Fisker Karma finished, with the remaining funding to be used on Fisker’s Project Nina. Project Nina? There’s a name we haven’t heard before, but the DOE says it will involve “the manufacture of a plug-in hybrid in the U.S.” Fisker says the name was chosen as a reference to Christopher Columbus, and “is symbolic of the automobile industry’s transition from old world to new.”
Image Courtesy Of Steven Sossouhounto
