Submitted 4/24/2010 by Thomas DeFresart

The Department of Energy agreed Friday to give Fisker Automotive a $528.7 million loan to help speed the development of alternative energy vehicles. The loan will help build the high end Karma plug-in hybrid as well as a more affordable model code-named Project Nina.

The half-billion dollar loan is similar to the $465 million loan given to Tesla Motors to develop its Model S sedan, as well as loans given to Nissan and Ford.

Energy secretary Steven Chu states that this loan will help “Fisker products contribute to cleaner air and reduced carbon emissions,“ as well as to “bring innovative cars to the market place while putting American workers back on the job.”

The money is intended to aid Fisker Automotive in coving the engineering integration costs for the $88,000 hybrid. The Karma will be built in Finland, but will use American sourced components. The US department ensured that most of the funds would stay in the US, as the majority of the loan will be used to buy and retool an old GM plant located in Wilmington, Delaware.

The Delaware site will be used to produce the mid-sized and more affordable model codenamed Project Nina. The car is scheduled to enter production in 2012 with a radical design and a size somewhere between a BMW 3 and 5 series sedan. Not much information has been released on the hybrid, except that it will cost around $40,000 after the federal tax credit for electric vehicles.

Fisker spokesperson Russell Datz proclaimed that the “DOE loan is a big step forward for Fisker Automotive, allowing us to maintain development and production schedules that will put many Americans to work building world-class, advanced technology cars.”

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