Electric Car Maker Lays Off Employees While Renegotiating Govt. Loan!

Another chunk of your tax dollars sprialing down the drain;  electric car maker Fisker has announced across the board layoffs, all while trying to renegotiate it's loan with the Federal Government for hundreds of millions of dollars!

Fisker, while still reltively unknown to consumers (until news of their receiving stimulus money), was the "other" electric car company besides GM and Nissan to build an electric car.  The difference? Fisker was trying to corner the luxury car market as well as produce a sedan, called the Nina.  The Karma is the 100k luxury car produced by Fisker.   As they were trying to renegotiate terms of their half a billion dollar loan, they announced 66 workers were laid off,  40 in their plant in California, and 26 more at the former GM Factor in Delaware that Fisker now occupies.   The Fisker Karma has actually been around for several years, it appeared at the 2009 Detroit Automotive show. But this was the first genuine attempt to mass produce the vehicle, as well as it's companion, the Nina  mid range sedan.

  The launch of the Karma was delayed because of regulatory issues (whatever those were) and, much like the Chevy Volt,  battery pack problems that forced a voluntary recall and delay by the company.  While the future of electric cars is certainly not dead,   with the exception of some modest success of the Nissan Leaf,  electric cars in America have largely been met with a thud.   One of the biggest obstacles (and one that appears to be ignored by the car makers and the Feds, who keep pumping money into them) is that consumer demand is flat if that.   The Obama Administration was expecting the public to just jump up and buy these overpriced, underperforming autos.  It hasn't worked out that way, and for at least the forseeable future, does not appear to show any signs of promise.