"Barney Koehler wrote an email to the DOE saying needed the loan approved ASAP to stay in business and to keep up with competitors (i.e. Tesla). "
keeping a drowning company afloat w a taxpayer loan is an abuse of the program. if you see it differently, so be it.
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i dont understand all the comparisons of fisker to tesla. you said if tesla were to have failed people would've said there were indications etc... well, tesla DIDNT fail and there's a reason for that. they're a good company!!!!!!! IMO, there is no comparison to the two companies. Tesla has an awesome product and awesome technology (they were selling their drivetrain while making roadsters). innovation!!!! fisker had none of the above.
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although, i understand getting their $ was linked to the Atlantic which may or may not have turned out better.
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oh, and to add... the now defunct company that helped raise their VC sounded very shady. there was an article about their practices and how they were able to raise so much $ so quickly.
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i feel much more strongly that fisker shouldnt have gotten the loan and that they used a lot more political grease to pave their way and get their hands on the money.
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altho, one thing i wasnt clear on til recently was that their loan was tied to the Atlantic/Nina which potentially could've been more green and more affordable. i wasnt sure what the exact specs were going to be for the car but considering the karma went from $80s to >$100k im not convinced the Atlantic would've stayed affordable.
ok, several points here.
1) there is nothing illegal about koehler saying that fisker needed money to keep up with tesla and stay in business. in fact, in hindsight, he was right. they even needed more of it. while you may not like it, and in hindsight the investment by the DOE turned out badly for us as taxpayers, there was no lie here. no illegal act. as for "keeping a drowning company afloat w a taxpayer loan," actually, that IS the point of the program. find companies that need help and are doing something that looks like it could benefit society, and help them. in the end, fisker ended up perhaps helping society some, but not as much as they hoped they would. but the loan program is there to help companies who may be having a hard time getting financing elsewhere, and to get them through a tough patch when they are in need. it isn't to lend to companies who don't need money and are very healthy financially, with an established business.
2) people have long compared fisker to tesla, for many reasons. no time to get into all the similarities, but...
- tesla hired fisker to design the model S, and tesla sued fisker for the designs, which were alleged to have been used in the karma.
- the model s and karma have competed for the same customers, and are the same size car, with some green features.
- they are two prominent new auto companies from the US that rose in the mid-2000s decade.
- they each sold about 2,000 of their first cars.
- they each got DOE loans of over $300 million.
i could go on. also of significant note is that tesla was on the edge of failure on several occassions, with recalls, delays, furious customers, and lots of bad press. just like fisker.
is tesla a "good company!!!!!!!"? in hindsight the results are good. but along the way things were painful at times. does tesla have "an awesome product and awesome technology"? many people think so. but many investors had high opinions of fisker when the DOE loan was made. fisker had a working prototype. they had lots of credentials. they had lots of equity financing so the DOE debt was insulated. it was later that they encountered the ultimately fatal difficulties. like hurricane sandy, fires, A123... none of those was known back when the DOE loan was signed.
did fisker have no "innovation!!!!"? you seem to forget that fisker touted its business strategy as outsourcing to others the capital intensive aspects of automotive manufacture. and capital markets loved it. have others invest in what they do best, and you find a way to integrate them. leave everyone to their highest and best use. give them specs and then let them create. of course, in hindsight that was a flawed strategy for such a complex product, where they were dependent on many others to get everything right. and too many things failed. A123. quantum. and even fisker as the integrator and project manager. but that was a selling point rather than a perceived weakness. also, a quick USPTO search shows that fisker has 20 patents.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=0&f=S&l=50&d=PTXT&RS=%28%22fisker%22+AND+henrik%29&Refine=Refine+Search&Query=fisker+and+henrik
so your binary characterization of fisker as stooges and tesla as angelic, and that that was known long ago, is plainly not supported by the facts.
3) yes, the fisker DOE loan was set up to fund the atlantic. that was always the story for the DOE loan and the equity investors. and i can tell you that when i saw the atlantic in person i was damned impressed. i wasn't sure how they could make that happen to those specs and at that price, and in fact to this day i don't know how they can get it done. because if they could, they should have just skipped the karma. just like i think that tesla should have just skipped to the gen 3 and bypassed the model S. but the technology just isn't there yet, which is why the LEAF, the activee, the e-tron, and everyone else has been unable to do a electric 3-series-like vehicle with acceleration under 5.0 and 250-mile range for less than $50K. i'll believe it when i see it. but if fisker could have done that, then it would have been a market killer. volt meets maserati.
in hindsight, more DD was needed to see whether that was attainable and whether they were on track. i personally didn't look at the books and records, so i don't know what the true state of play was at that time. but from what i did see, there were some big assumptions. but the DOE loan was always about the atlantic. the DOE didn't have a desire to fund a $100,000 luxury sedan only. the atlantic was supposed to be a $40K car. mass market. just like tesla, where the model S was touted as a $49,900 car. now that has been killed and only the more expensive cars will be sold, because sigs who were required to buy an 85 kWh and the other early adopters didn't want the 40 kWh car. but when the tesla DOE loan was signed tesla was supposed to sell cars for under $50K.
4) advanced equities sounded very shady? well sounding shady isn't illegal. there was an article that said something about how they raised money quickly? uhhhh, yeah. that's what they do. advanced equities set up the equity investor event i attended in newport beach and which finished up at fisker automotive. they were the bank that was pitching the opportunity. as we as potential investors sat and watched henrik and saw the presentation we got to ask questions. i found the information to not be compelling enough to invest. but if pitching an investment that eventually fails is illegal, half of silicon valley is going to jail. that's start-up investing. if people have facts about misrepresentations, let's talk about that. but sounding shady and having a guy write an article after an investment fails? that's standard fare.
5) you may not have been aware of the karma/atlantic components of the DOE loan, but that has been clear from the beginning, as i described above, and as was part of the deal as disclosed in september of 2009 when the deal was signed.
"The Department of Energy has approved a low-interest loan of $528M for Fisker. The majority of the money will be put toward Fisker’s Project NINA, with the rest helping to fund the completion of Karma development. The sedan will be the company’s first product and will bow next year, featuring a 402-hp range-extended electric drivetrain and an $87,900 price tag.
Fisker says Project NINA will result in a family-oriented plug-in hybrid costing just below $40K after tax credits. The company plans to launch it by 2012, with an annual sales rate reaching 100,000 units."
Fisker Approved for $528M DOE Loan | Car and Driver Blog
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I believe these videos cover the entire hearing:
thanks, doug!