The Irvine based Fisker Automotive Inc. answered back at the critics of a $529 million Energy Department loan that landed last month. The company told that some reports on the low-interest federal loan marginalized or totally ignored the truth. They sensationalized the irrelevant aspects of the company and the loan.

The news of loan going to a company that has plans to produce expensive hybrid cars in Europe was criticized by Fox News and others also. While there are other groups who are pointing out to the fact that Fisker Automotive has raised about $100 million in financing, which includes involvement of a politically connected Silicon Valley venture capital firm named Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Al Gore, the former Vice President is a partner at the firm and has also ordered a Fisker car.

It is decided that Fisker will use $170 million of the loan for finishing the production of Karma Sedan. The car runs with the combination gasoline and a rechargeable battery engine developed by Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide Inc., an Irvine-based company.

The Karma is expected to be launched next summer and as it will be sold for $88,000 before rebates. Fisker is also working on a sports car called the Sunset.

The remaining loan amount will be spend on developing hybrid car Nina, which is specially meant for families and other users. The car would be out in the market by the year by 2012 and will be priced around $40,000.

Fisker also talked about the price issue saying that any new technology is expensive. Cellphones, televisions and even cars were expensive when they were introduced in the market. The cost will however come down after a few years.

Critics are also pointing at Fisker’s hiring of Finnish custom automaker Valmet Automotive OY for producing the cars.

Karma, the low-volume car will be assembled in Finland by Valmet Automotive, whereas, the next generation Karma will be totally built in the U.S. Nina, the economical car will be made entire in the U.S.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 at 1:18 pm and is filed under Venture Capital Funding, Venture Capital News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.