US hybrid car startup Fisker Automotive has been awarded a 529 million USD loan from the US Department of Energy. The loan is conditional, and will be used by Fisker to develop the two lines of plug-in hybrids currently on the company's drawing board.
Initially, the much-publicised Karma project will receive 169.3 million USD of the loan to help with final pre-manufacture development ahead of the luxury car's scheduled launch next summer. This part of the loan is also earmarked for developing the tools and equipment needed for future production and models.
Indeed, in the second stage of the loan the other 359.4 million will be pumped into the first of those future models, currently known as 'Project Nina'. Conceived as a more affordable family saloon, 'Nina' should cost somewhere in the region of 40,000 USD (£24,351) when it goes on sale in late 2012, and Fisker hopes to produce an ambitious 75,000 - 100,000 of them every year.
It remains a sensitive time to talk about large-scale government loans in a recession-hit US, but in a press release Energy Secretary Steven Chu highlighted the welcome creation and maintenance of jobs in both production and parts supply that the Fisker cars will secure, as well as a range of other social and political justifications for the significant loan.
"Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles could revolutionize personal transportation and cut our dependence on foreign oil, not to mention give us cleaner air and less carbon pollution", he said.
The money for the loan comes from the Department of Energy's $25 billion Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loans program, which earlier in the year also awarded 465 million USD to Tesla. But all this is small beans compared with the 5.9 billion going to Ford and 1.6 billion to Nissan, as the US attempts to position itself as a significant player in the 'green' automotive future.
![](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 4 3"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
![](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="https://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 1 1"%3E%3C/svg%3E)