And Fisker's Response. Just went up on FaceBook. Nicely done!
:fisker:
Yesterday evening ABC News published a story entitled “Car Company gets US loan, builds cars in Finland”
ABC insinuates that Fisker used political connections to receive DoE loans and also makes the misleading point that, despite taking loan money from the DoE, Fisker is producing its first car, the Karma sedan, in Finland.
We think that ABC missed the mark and failed to tell the whole Fisker story.
Please note the following points of clarification:
The Fisker Karma is the world’s first environmentally-responsible luxury sedan with a unique hybrid electric powertrain developed by a highly-skilled team of engineers and designers in America.
Not a single dollar of the DoE loan has been, or will be, spent outside of the United States. All expenditures are reviewed by PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) on behalf of the DoE.
After receiving the DoE loan, Fisker made it a priority to create U.S. jobs, which led to the purchase of its own assembly plant in Delaware where we plan to establish production of our second, higher volume, line of vehicles (Project Nina). There are currently over 100 workers reconfiguring the Delaware plant so that Fisker will be ready to begin hiring a skilled hourly workforce to produce its Nina platform vehicles in the U.S. for export around the world. Many of these Delaware costs are covered by the DoE loans.
For the Karma program, the DoE loan money was used solely in the U.S. to fund design, engineering, and integration work. This has helped to create jobs throughout the U.S, including 650 people at Fisker’s headquarters in California, over 100 at the Delaware plant and many more at various suppliers.
More than 45% of the components of the Fisker Karma sedan are manufactured by approximately 40 suppliers located in the U.S. Some of our biggest suppliers in the U.S. include A123 Systems (Li-ion battery), General Motors Springhill Engine Plant (gasoline engine), Goodyear (tires) and TRW (regenerative braking system).
Only private equity financing has been used for costs not covered by the DoE loan. We have raised more than $600 million in private equity financing thus far and only a small part has been spent on production costs in Finland.
At the inception of the company, Fisker explored the possibility of producing the Karma in the U.S. However, there are no contract manufacturers like Valmet in the U.S., and none of the established domestic automakers were willing to partner with Fisker to provide a manufacturing option in the U.S. that would work for the Karma program.
There is no link between Fisker Automotive and any political party. We are politically neutral – our focus is on building luxury electric vehicles.
With the help of DoE loans, Fisker has already created hundreds of U.S. jobs, with thousands more in the near future. Ultimately Fisker will be a profitable, high-tech American Car Company that we’re confident will be an American success story to be celebrated.
Sincerely,
Henrik Fisker
CEO and Chief Designer
