Car Throttle

News broke just yesterday about the possibility of a Fisker plant at General Motors' Wilmington, Delaware facility where the Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky roadsters were produced. Now it's official, as the announcement was made today! Fisker executives made the announcement onsite, along with Vice President Joe Biden, Delaware Governor's Jack Markell and other state officials. The plant being reopened is welcome news to the many that lost their jobs in the recent plant closure. Fisker intends to purchase the dormant company from the Motors Liquidation Company (MLC), the part of General Motors that still remains in bankruptcy, for a paltry sum of $18 million. The plant is being purchased for the production Fisker's low-cost Project NINA. The company recently secured a $528.7 million dollar loan from

Tesla Motors has been busy making the transition from well-funded startup to a full-fledged player on the automotive scene. The Model S is the company's first volume vehicle, a mid-sized sedan priced around $50,000 that is projected to sell around 20,000 units per year. Selling 20,000 units a year of the Model S is a whole lot different than selling a few hundred Roadsters per year. With the help of a (job security, anyone?) large government loan guarantee from the Department of Energy, Tesla is recruiting top talent and expertise in the automotive industry that will help it to make the transition. The two new hires are Peter Rawlinson and Henry Brice. Rawlinson is Tesla's new chief vehicle engineer, having worked at Corus Automotive, an engineering consulting firm. He

The most recent report about Fisker was right - the company is coming out with a low-cost plug-in hybrid and has received a lon from the Department of Energy to do it. Not only did Fisker get the loan, but the awarded amount is actually larger than Tesla's. What a surprise! Part of that has to do with the fact that Tesla's first vehicle, the Roadster, is already out and developed. That enabled the entirety of Tesla's request to go towards the design and development of the Model S. Fisker's loan totals $528.7 million and is intended for two model lines. The first part is $169.3 million for "engineering integration costs" on the Karma. The second stage is a $359.36 million loan for the development of

Companies specializing in alternative fuels are hitting some good times as of late, even in spite of the relatively low fuel prices. Bitter rival Tesla has taken a lot of new orders for the Model S, gotten a Department of Energy loan guarantee to produce it, and has hit profitability for the first time. Fisker on the other hand, has taken a different tack, forging ahead with it's Karma range-extended vehicle. It still has similar goals though to produce low-cost vehicle, and has applied for a Department of Energy loan to meet that. Henrik Fisker, Fisker's founder and namesake, has spoken a lot about his desire to produce one. Could we be near an announcement? We already know that Tesla has a model in the works that is

After months of speculation and waiting, the day has finally come. The U.S Department of Energy has announced it's approval of loans from the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program (ATVMP). The ATVMP is a bill passed by Congress that awards $25 billion in loan guarantees to auto manufacturers. It is intended to spur alternative fuel development. Originally, it was expected that the Big Three automakers would benefit biggest from the program. Given their state of bankruptcy, overall financial condition and the fact that  they received bailout loans, both were made ineligible to receive ATVMP funding. Out of the three automakers announced today, Ford will be getting the most. $5.9 billion has been approved out of the - whoa- $11 billion it applied for. Nissan got it's entire $1.6 billion request granted, and will use the funds to modify it's Smyrna, Tennessee, manufacturing plant to produce 150,000 electric vehicles and 200,000

The ink is hardly dry on the announcement for Fisker's new range-extended electric vehicle, the Karma and yet the company head Henrik Fisker is already talking about a successor. The company has come such a long way since its original inception. Originally the company sold coach built vehicles like the Tramonto and Latigo CS. The Tramonto was based on the Mercedes-Benz SL and the Latigo CS on the BMW 6-Series. Smartly, the company used those models to produce a profit that would help investors kick down the cash to develop dedicated vehicles like the Karma.   Henry Fisker's dream is being realized! Like Tesla, the company has applied for Department of Energy loan guarantees. Fisker hopes to use that money to develop a new low cost model, using the same

A little over a month after unveiling the Model S sedan, Tesla Motors has announced today that the company has received over 1,000 orders. That is no doubt an impressive figure! Consider this; the company has no factory yet to produce the model and the purchase price is at around $50,000, in luxury territory. 1,000 orders is a number to be excited about. I can see why the car reached so many orders too. The car offers an incredible value proposition and Elon Musk has guaranteed to personally refund deposits should an "Armageddon scenario" happen to the company. This is the guy that founded PayPal and SpaceX; I think people have a lot of confidence that he will be able to deliver on the Model S's promises. Like

Like Autoblog pointed out, GM's Bob Lutz was often the most quotable auto executive out there, proving over and over again his propensity to say - interesting - things and get headlines because of it. Apparently Elon Musk thinks so as well. Free publicity! It all started with an original editorial in the New York Times, back in November of 2008. In the article columnist Randle Stross ripped Tesla. Witness: “It's all-electric technology remains woefully immature and don’t-even-ask expensive....The Roadster is not much more than a functioning concept car that sells for $109,000.” Needless to say, it was scathing. After a dustup with Tesla buyer and Silicon Valley tech guy John Calcanis, apparently NYT did a retraction and the article was rewritten. Why this is still relevant right now, I

Model S envy? Maybe. Don't worry, I'd be jealous too Fisker. Tesla has been capturing all the headlines as of late with the Model S while Fisker, who is farther along on the journey to production, has been avoiding the limelight. Fisker has made it clear, espessially recently, that a lower-cost model was always in the future plan. A higher-end vehicle was needed to help subsidize some of the cost at the beginning. Even given the high cost of earlier entry that usually impairs new technologies, I'm impressed with the price that Fisker is able to offer the Karma. It certainly seems like something that will catch on with enough well-heeled customers. $87,900 for a beautiful, 4-door sedan with a 50-mile electric only range, available very soon? Sounds