Friday, April 19, 2013

Your Tax Dollars At Work: $600,000 For Each Car

Bloomberg is reporting:
Fisker Automotive Inc. spent more than six times as much U.S. taxpayer and investor money to produce each luxury plug-in car it sold than the company received from customers, according to a research report.
The Anaheim, California-based company made about 2,500 of its $103,000 Karmas before halting production last year, disrupting its plans to use a $529 million U.S. loan to restart a shuttered Delaware factory owned by the predecessor of General Motors Co. The Karma was assembled in Finland.

Fisker was allowed to keep using money from its Energy Department loan after violating its terms multiple times, according to a report released April 17 by PrivCo, a New York- based researcher specializing in closely held companies. It said it based its report on documents, including the loan agreement, obtained through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.
Energy Dept spokesman disagrees with some of the report, but apparently everyone agrees that the endeavor cost the government about $600,000 to make a $100,000 car for the elite. My opinion, of course.  And, yes, I know start-up costs explain much of this, and when the car went into mass production, the cost/car would come down.

Of course, those start-up costs were spent on a car assembled in Finland, the foreign country that borders Russia, not a county in California.

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