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During the presidential debates last year, Mitt Romney pandered to his base through his painting of green energy companies, including Tesla Motors, as “losers".

This of course did not go over well at Tesla, where founder and CEO Elon Musk defended his company against Mitt’s lumping of his firm alongside Fisker, a company sued by Tesla in 2008 for stolen designs ( http://gigaom.com/2008/04/15/valleys-green-car-feud-tesla-sues-fisker/]). The following week, Bloomberg reported that Elon Musk was ‘not happy’ with the label by the one-time GOP nominee.

Now that the election is over, Romney’s words are still haunting the Republican Party. Many pundits for the GOP latched onto those words, claiming that the green energy automotive loans were a failed investment. Today is a sad day for them, as their entire mantra comes crumbling down. You see, Tesla Motors is repaying their government loan early ( http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-22/tesla-repaying-loan-for-loser
s-gives-obama-green-win.html]), with Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive officer, posting on his twitter feed:

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Given govt loan repayment this week (prob Wed), Supercharger update will be next week. Work continuing independent of announcement.

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And down goes Romney, beaten with his own words, once again. And with him, the entire Republican Party. Not only is Tesla not a “loser,” it is repaying its auto loan 9 years early. This even caught Bloomberg by surprise, as their talking heads had to try and catch up as the news passed them by.

Bloomberg correctly points out that what Tesla did with the loan was to invest in support for its vehicles, unveiling a network of charging stations for Tesla vehicles which directly addresses the main concern over Tesla vehicles, the disparity between refueling points between electric vehicles and gasoline based vehicles. By setting up a network from which Tesla owners can charge their vehicles, Tesla has put themselves, while not on-parity with the 100 years of subsidized petroleum based vehicle refueling stations, at least in the game. With the repayment of the loan, Tesla Motors is in a very good position moving forward.

But what of the other companies funded under this program?

The Republicans are quick to jump on A123 and Fisker, and claim that one success does not make a successful program. However, these two companies failure is inter-related, so need to be considered as one. A123 was the battery supplier for Fisker Automotive, which had a major problem with battery failures resulting in recalls which cooled reception for the highly anticipated $100,000 luxury sports car. This in turn hurt A123's revenue curve, forcing it into bankruptcy last year. And with A123 going into bankruptcy, and the disruption of the key technology for Fisker’s sole product forced Fisker into bankruptcy, where it is now potentially to be purchased by auto legend Bob Lutz. It did not help that, in order to avoid bankruptcy, Fisker turned to Huron Consulting Group, which was found to have engaged in accounting violations.

None of these firms, however, are the largest of the green vehicle government loans. That honor goes to Ford Motor Company, and Nissan Motor Co. Both firms have used these loans to produce new, innovative and popular vehicles. Ford now has five different models of electric and hybrid vehicles, and Nissan introduced the Leaf. Both firms are on track to repay their loans on schedule.

This is the reality, that the loan program, created by President Bush, has been an overall success. While some firms have gone under, the majority of the loans are producing dividends, and will result in a direct net profit for the government. But, more importantly, by the time they are repaid, our roads will not be the same, and a new, rapid growth industry will have taken root. Already electric and hybrid vehicles account for 1% of all vehicles on the road within the US, remarkable considering the first modern mass market electric hybrid in the United States was introduced in 1997 and the first modern mass market electric in 1998. Imagine what another 10 years, combined with the rapid growth of charging stations across the nation, will bring.

As for his original comments, Mitt Romney has remained silent on this topic since announced. (More cites and links at http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/05/22/california-green-car-company-t
esla-repays-government-loan-early-silencing-gop-critics/#ixzz2U87mJZGM

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Fisker automotive may be kaput. But my friend Dave insisted that before I joined the parade of writers comparing the failed electric-car company to Solyndra, the other California-based manufacturer that went bust after landing a federal clean-energy loan, I had to borrow his curvaceous Fisker Karma. It’s been described as the most beautiful sedan ever built, and I must say that Dave’s sparkling ocean-blue model—there’s crushed glass coated with sterling silver in the paint—looks particularly cool. As I cruised through Miami’s South Beach, tourists kept giving me thumbs-up and taking pictures with their phones, which rarely happens when I drive my Honda Odyssey. I aired out the Karma on the highway too. It’s a pretty sweet ride.

So now I’m more qualified to conclude that yes, Fisker has a lot in common with Solyndra. And that’s nothing for the government to be embarrassed about.

President Bush signed the loan program into law in 2005. He let it languish, but President Obama expanded it and started handing out cash to solar manufacturers, wind developers, fuel-efficient-car makers and other clean-tech businesses in 2009. The goal was to commercialize cutting-edge green technologies that could reduce the U.S.’s foreign-oil addiction and carbon emissions while creating jobs in tomorrow’s industries. Everyone knew some loans would go bad. The hope was that some loans would change the world.

Fisker probably won’t, but that doesn’t mean it was a dumb bet all along. An exhaustive Republican investigation found no wrongdoing connected to the Solyndra loan, and there’s no reason to think the Fisker loan was shady either. Like Solyndra, it was once considered a game-changing example of American innovation. Like Solyndra, Fisker raised a billion dollars from private investors. But like Solyndra, Fisker couldn’t cut it in the marketplace. The $100,000 Karma broke down on the Consumer Reports test track. Its display panel is a mess; I couldn’t get the radio to work. Fisker had awful production problems and ultimately sold only about 2,000 Karmas before suspending operations. Its second model, which was supposed to revive a shuttered GM factory in Delaware, was never built. The Energy Department cut Fisker off after it drew down just $192 million of a half-billion-dollar loan.

So it goes. companies that receive tax breaks and subsidies fail all the time. Ordinary Americans who get tax deductions and subsidies fail too. Success is not guaranteed in a capitalist economy. The loan program provided a jump start, not a free ride. But Solyndra’s failure has overshadowed a spectacular boom in the solar industry, which has grown more than tenfold since Obama took office. Fisker’s failure could overshadow similarly impressive growth in plug-in electrics; there were almost none on U.S. roads before 2008, and now there are more than 100,000. During a presidential debate, Mitt Romney memorably lumped in Tesla Motors with Fisker as an Obama-supported “loser,” but Tesla just had its first profitable quarter and is on track to pay back its federal loan five years early. Its Model S has won the big Car of the Year awards and received the highest Consumer Reports score of any car since 2007. Its reviewers have sounded like teenage boys reviewing porn. So who’s the loser?

The larger point is that overall, as an independent review by Republican Senator John McCain’s finance chairman confirmed, the Energy Department’s $40 billion loan portfolio is performing well. It’s also transforming the energy landscape with America’s largest wind farm, a half-dozen of the world’s largest solar plants, cellulosic-biofuel refineries and much more. Obama didn’t support one company or one technology; he supported all kinds of plausible alternatives to fossil fuels. He didn’t pick winners and losers; he picked the game of cleaner energy. And we’re winning. The U.S. has doubled its production of renewable power. Our carbon emissions are at their lowest levels since the early 1990s. And after decades when the U.S. invented products like solar panels and lithium-ion batteries only to see them manufactured and deployed abroad, we’re finally making green stuff at home. For example, not only are we generating twice as much wind power, we’re making twice as many of the components for U.S. wind turbines.

Unfortunately, Dave’s ocean-blue midlife-crisis car probably won’t be one of those things we’ll make. The Karma will become a collector’s item, a 21st century DeLorean, a reminder that even sexy products can stumble in the marketplace. But that’s not a scandal. That’s just a bump on the road to a green future. http://business.time.com/2013/05/16/a-bump-on-the-road-to-green/#ixzz2
U8I9a7RJ

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