Henrik Fisker has come a long way in the past few months, from the Man With No Car (or at least none that anyone had driven) to Elon Musk’s Worst Nightmare. Oh wait – he already was that.

But now Elon is really grinding his molars because Fisker Automotive has outscored Tesla on the big DOE Handout Challenge, $529 million to $465.

The funds come from the DOE’s Advanced Technologies Vehicle Manufacturing Loan program, and are to be spent on getting two Fisker models into production. The first $170 mil is to help the supplier community tool up for the kick-ass Karma [for the first of which Secretary of Energy Steven Chu has clearly locked in his order - Ed.] into production next summer. The remaining $360 million is for the production development of a lower-priced ($39,000) 2013 Fisker model which has a name – Nina – and not much else yet to hang an extension cord on.  read more »

Can't pronounce it. Who cares. Look at this beast.

And MIT's Technology Review has a great story about the Manx TT (Electric) race here. Read it.

It's Alive! The Fisker made its locomotive debut at Laguna Seca Raceway during the Monterey Historic Automobile Festival. It rounded the classic California race course under its own power, reportedly hitting hitting 100 MPH at some points.

It's great to know that the Fisker moves after all, and pretty smartly, at that. The question is how the Fisker PR team managed to turn such a momentuous event into such a boring video. Where's Hank (Hink?) Fisker? The driver in the video is Fisker Automotive co-founder, COO and CSM (Chief Straight-Man) Bernhard Koehler, who for all his excitement, might as well be driving a Prius to the 7-11. It's not easy to make a lap of Laguna look boring.  read more »

“Thanks” won’t be the first thing that the “Where’s my electric car?” crowd says when they get it. It’ll be, “Where’s my air conditioning?”

One of the biggest problems with electric cars is electricity. It's bad enough that EVs have to lug around their own batteries and/or gen-sets (at least until those magnetic highways are built). The electricity required just to tell you how fast you're going, to indicate how little range you've got left (half it), and to power your nav system is significant, and it isn't getting you any closer to the plug.  read more »

Buffett Posts $1 Billion Profit on China Hybrid Carmaker BYD

By Bloomberg News

July 31 (Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. earned a $1 billion paper profit from an investment it agreed to make in Chinese carmaker BYD Co. less than a year ago.

The automaker has jumped fivefold in Hong Kong trading since the deal was announced on Sept. 27, helped by Buffett’s investment and rising demand for fuel-efficient vehicles. Three days earlier Berkshire agreed to an investment in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that has since generated a paper profit of about $2 billion.  read more »

“As our company places stronger focus on sustainability initiatives, our participation in Formula One becomes less a key promoter of this engagement.” – BMW Chairman Norbert Reithofer

Cynics are claiming that BMW is pulling out of auto racing’s highest-profile series because the team hasn’t performed very well against Ferrari, McLaren-Mercedes, and several independent teams. And they’re right, up to a point – BMW hasn’t gotten much for the hundreds of millions of euros they’ve invested in the effort over the last three years. But good little cynics that they are, they also dismissed BMW’s Strategy Number ONE, announced late last year in response to the swirl of crises that are signaling the end of an automotive era. The SN1 vows in no uncertain terms that BMW’s priority is to develop sustainable product technologies. So a racing program with a sustenance regimen like Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors ain’t the prize of BMW’s garden any more.  read more »

From Gas 2.0 (Andrew Williams)

Toyota has revealed that its eagerly anticipated iQ-based all-electric car will receive its own individual body-style makeover, to create a stand-alone model set to become Toyota’s first all-electric car.

It appears that the electric iQ, due for launch in 2010, will not be pushed in the same market sectors as the original. Speaking about the strategy Hiroki Nakajima, chief engineer for the iQ said, “We wanted to position the iQ as premium, but not so the BEV (battery electric vehicle).” Perhaps they think that your average EV user is a little more low-rent than other drivers?  read more »

WSJ's Road Tester says Tesla Roadster gives a big charge, but the reality is it's still in beta.

There's a lot to love about the Tesla roadster and the gutsiness of Tesla Motors, but while the hype has done a great job of shouting that future is here, the pioneering BEV has to slog through the present. Driving range is way below the claims, prices are climbing, and recalls are demonstrating that, unfortunately "a whole new auto industry" is still subject to many of the technology, economic and industrial realities of the old one.

Read the Clifford Tabiyeh's review in the Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124629044888368573.html#mod=loomia?loomi...  read more »

WSJ's Road Tester says Tesla Roadster gives a big charge, but the reality is it's still in beta.

There's a lot to love about the Tesla roadster and the gutsiness of Tesla Motors, but while the hype has done a great job of shouting that future is here, the pioneering BEV has to slog through the present. Driving range is way below the claims, prices are climbing, and recalls are demonstrating that, unfortunately "a whole new auto industry" is still subject to many of the technology, economic and industrial realities of the old one.

Read the Clifford Tabiyeh's review in the Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124629044888368573.html#mod=loomia?loomi...  read more »