President Obama's "green" industrial policy took a huge hit when Soyldra went down the tubes amidst charges of crony capitalism and so on. Now another beneficiary of centralized "green" planning is in trouble. Autoweek reports that:
Work on the Fisker Nina family sedan has temporarily halted at the Fisker Automotive plant in Wilmington, Del., while the carmaker and the federal government hash out details of the company's $529 million Department of Energy loan. The interruption has resulted in the layoff of 26 people at its Delaware plant and a number of contract engineers at Fisker's Anaheim, Calif., headquarters.
And the WSJ reports that:
Fisker spokesman Roger Ormisher said ... his company wasn't in peril. "We are still continuing to raise equity. We raised $260 million in the last three or four months," he said. The company said in a statement that it had raised $850 million in equity from private sources. But the future of the Nina and the 2,500 jobs in Delaware will depend on whether Fisker can revive the federal loans, or replace them, Mr. Ormisher said.
"There comes a point where you say, 'We can't keep putting money into that project,' " he said.
At the very least, it's another bump in the road for industrial policy.
