EV Engineering News

Mr Fisker goes to Washington

There were few surprises at Thursday’s House hearing on failing carmaker Fisker Automotive. The title of the hearing, Green Energy Oversight: Examining the Department of Energy’s Bad Bet on Fisker Automotive, made it clear up front that Fisker and its DOE champions were in for a roasting.

Five witnesses testified, including company co-founder Henrik Fisker, current COO Bernhard Koehler, and Nicholas Whitcombe of the DOE Loan Programs Office.

Amid all the political posturing, it may be easy to forget that the mandate of the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform is not to judge the wisdom of investing in electric mobility, but to expose government waste and mismanagement – and it seems clear that some of that was indeed going on. Republican committee members pointed to evidence that the DOE failed to realize that Fisker was not meeting required milestones in its loan agreement, and acted too late when it froze Fisker’s loan in June 2011.

Some of the Democrats on the committee tried to come to the DOE’s defense, pointing out that Fisker received only 2.3 percent of the total funds awarded under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program. Fisker received a total of $192 million, and the DOE recently recovered $21 million. Koehler claims that Fisker still plans to pay everything back, and that there is a lot of value left in the company – he said that design and engineering work for its second vehicle, the Atlantic, is “almost complete.”

In case there were any doubts about the political nature of the hearing, several committee members made it clear in their public comments. Representative Darryl Issa (R-CA), said, “Mitt Romney, the day he left graduate school, would not have made the mistake” of loaning Fisker more money. Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) invoked a trio of liberal bogeymen, saying “Taxpayers effectively subsidized luxury, novelty vehicles for the likes of Justin Bieber, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Al Gore.”

On the other side of the aisle, Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA) compared the hearings to “a Soviet show trial.”

 

Sources: Green Car Reports, AutoBlog Green

Comment
Create Account. Already Registered? Log In

Virtual Conference on EV Infrastructure: Free to Attend

Don't miss our next Virtual Conference on December 4-6, 2023. Register for the free webinar sessions below and reserve your spot to watch them live or on-demand.

LOAD MORE SESSIONS

EV Engineering Webinars & Whitepapers

EV Tech Explained

The Tech

BMS functional verification: the safety-first approach

An open-source operating system for charging infrastructure: why one stack should charge them all (Webinar)

Renesas unveils processor roadmap for next-gen automotive SoCs and MCUs

Researchers shape hard carbon to form high-capacity electrodes for sodium-ion batteries

The Vehicles & Infrastructure

Utah DOT receives $43 million in grants to build EV fast charging stations

SSE Energy Solutions to build electric truck charging hub in Birmingham, UK

Tips for fleet managers transitioning from diesel to EVs (Webinar)

KEBA and Easelink work to develop automated hands-free conductive charging for EVs at home

Clenergy EV adds more CPOs to its European e-roaming network, enables touch-free payments

ubitricity and UK Power Networks to launch program that shifts charging demand from peak hours

Does Germany have too many public EV charging stations?

Low electrical conductivity coolants for EV charging applications (Webinar)

SWTCH and Hubject to expand roaming for North American EV charging

HummingbirdEV secures funding for its commercial EV systems