WASHINGTON (AP) — The Energy Department is lending money to the Ford Motor Co. and two other automakers from a $25 billion fund to develop fuel-efficient vehicles, congressional officials say.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu was scheduled to announce the loan funding for Ford, Nissan Motor Co. and Tesla Motors Inc. on Tuesday in Dearborn, Mich., the officials said. They requested anonymity because an official announcement was pending.
Dozens of auto companies, suppliers and battery makers have sought a total of $38 billion from the loan program. Ford has asked to receive $5 billion in loans by 2011, but it was unclear how much money the automaker would receive. Nissan has applied for an undisclosed amount of assistance, while Tesla has sought $450 million.
The Energy Department declined to comment on the plans. Chu has not yet announced the first recipients of the loans, which have been closely watched by members of Congress from states with auto plants and suppliers.
Congress approved the loan program last year to help car companies and suppliers retool their facilities to develop green vehicles and components such as advanced batteries.
The loans were designed to help the auto manufacturers meet new fuel-efficiency standards of at least 35 miles per gallon by 2020, a 40 percent increase over current standards...
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Griff
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How in the fuck does 2 foreign companies get money from the US government to develop fuel efficient cars that will be built primarily in foreign countries and imported to the US? How in the fuck can foreign companies even apply for US government money? Can anyone explain that to me?
Fucking seriously. How bad does the government want to destroy American manufacturing. You loan the money to American car companies, they build 1000 mpg cars and kill the foreign car companies in all markets becoming dominant and reopening up all of the shut down factories because they are making 10 times the cars that they were because they can make a god damn SUV that gets 1000 mpg. Plus we would be fucking the Middle east and Chavez at the same god damn time. Fucking joke fucking government.
Tesla Motors is based out of California. Ford is American too. That leaves Nissan, which is heavily invested in NA. I can guarantee their proposal probably bases most of the development in America. You are seriously fucking complaining about your gov't loadning out money to companies that actually have a good business plan and will be able to pay it back, while creating jobs in America no less, rather then shipping them off to Mexico!?
I thought Tesla was out of Sweden or Norway. My bad. Nissan has assembly plants in the US but it is still a foreign corp. There are no guarantees that the cars will be built in the US even the Ford ones but there is a better chance ofthem being built in the US if it is a US company. Nissan or any other foreign company should not get a dime of money from the US government. My biggest complaint is that the US government is loaning money in the first place. When a country has to sell 150 billion in bonds per MONTH they have no business loaning money to anyone for anything.
Obama is the biggest protectionist you've had as a president for a while. I can guarantee you that they would not loan them the money if the companies were not investing it back into the US. Also, if they don't give out loans, then you will be fucked. America is the most productive country in the world, but still has a huge potential that is currently being flushed down the shitter by this recession. Investing in good companies with good ideas is the right thing to do. Giving out money to bankrupt companies and that are selling much of themselves off piecemeal is probably money you'll never see again.
I do agree that loaning money to good companies with good ideas is a great thing to do. However, when you are running a deficit of 1.9 trillion dollars this year the government should not be loaning out money for any reasons.
Originally Posted by Al Bundy's Friend Griff[Only Registered Users Can See LinksClick Here To Register]
Obama is a protectionist?
I'm surprised you don't know that he is... That is one of the stupid democratic/left-sided policies I can never get my head around. You guys probably don't quite get the same perspective as Canadians, but we hear about it often. Obama is definitely all for hurting free-trade if it means "more" American jobs. I don't know how you can be anti-union, but protectionist. They are both the same thing, just on different scales.
If Obama was a protectionist he would not have cancelled the oil leases that the Bush admin negotiated. If he was a protectionist there is about a million things he could be doing. But he isn't and he wont be doing any of them.
35mpg. What a joke. Why not just leave the standards as is, and not give them any money. When are they going to draw the line between helping the environment and screwing our economy.
Funny episode, though it was a comment on the writer's strike, not really Canada. Whether you like it or not, we are each others' largest trading partners.
Originally Posted by Al Bundy's Friend Griff[Only Registered Users Can See LinksClick Here To Register]
If Obama was a protectionist he would not have cancelled the oil leases that the Bush admin negotiated. If he was a protectionist there is about a million things he could be doing. But he isn't and he wont be doing any of them.
The oil leases are being reconsidered. [Only Registered Users Can See LinksClick Here To Register]
Yes, he is protectionist, the "Buy American" line has already jeopardized Canadian business that was covered under NAFTA protections from nationalism. There's at least 2 major steel manufacturers (Stelco/ U.S. Steel Canada Inc, and Inco/Vale) in Canada that have to develop Chinese/European contracts because long-standing contracts with the US Gov't. are being cancelled. You're also getting 44% of your daily oil diet from Canadian source (up 10% from last year) because no matter how fast the oil leases are developed, it won't be fast enough to meet demand.
That being said: Tesla is based out of San Carlos CA. Renault/Nissan is developing EV's with exchangeable battery packs and the recycling processes for them... I'd have hoped to see GM get a slice of the action with the Volt getting an exchangeable battery pack. Kinda sucks.
$49,000 is a decent price for that. The Volt is set for $40K IIRC, the technology is pretty cheap, now they just need to get the Battery Swap stations together and it'll be good to go.
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Ford, Nissan, Tesla to get govt loans
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