21st Century Regenerative Technology

1. DOE Charges Up Plug-Ins With $30M for the Big Three
2. Valley Green Car Feud: Tesla vs. Fisker Going to Arbitration

DOE Charges Up Plug-Ins With $30M for the Big Three

2008-06-13 16:03

Craig Rubens - Policy

The Department of Energy is putting up to $30 million into plug-in hybrid electric vehicle projects at Ford, General Motors and Chrysler over the next three years. Andy Karsner, the assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy at the DOE, made the announcement from a panel on federal policy for plug-in vehicles at the Plug-In Electric Vehicles 2008: What Role for Washington? conference, sponsored by the Brookings Institution and Google.org.

We were at the conference, and grabbed this video of Karsner’s talk just prior to the announcement, which includes his defense of the Bush administration’s energy policies. Our favorite quote was this weird statement on how other countries can’t compete with the sexiness of the Volt:

“I don’t have to tell you how sexy the Volt is. The Japanese and Chinese couldn’t possibly put out something that appealing to middle America.”

Check out the video, and Karsner’s comments. As moderator Thomas Friedman said, “Until you’ve heard Andy debate Al Gore, you haven’t lived.” Yuks all around.

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Valley Green Car Feud: Tesla vs. Fisker Going to Arbitration

2008-06-13 14:17

Katie Fehrenbacher - Startups

The brawl between Telsa and Fisker Automotive, the two electric-car startups backed by Silicon Valley's most well-known cleantech VCs, is heading to arbitration, according to San Mateo court records (hat tip CNET). The court records say that Fisker’s request to take the issue to arbitration has been granted, and CNET quotes a statement from Fisker founder Henrik Fisker that says his company is “extremely pleased” with the court’s decision.

You should bet Fisker is. Fisker had been looking to avoid a time-consuming and costly lawsuit, after Tesla accused Henrik Fisker and Fisker's COO, Bernhard Koehler, of entering into a $875,000 design contract with Tesla and then walking away with trade secrets and launching their own competing car. Tesla had hired the Fisker team to do some design work for the body of Tesla's sedan, code-named White Star.

Fights among competitors in the Valley's very small world aren't uncommon, but Tesla and Fisker are backed by competing venture firms. The roots of these opposing teams stretch way back, to before the dot-com days. And the whole green, do-gooder image doesn’t stand up so well in the face of very public feuds.

In May Fisker said it would file for arbitration in an attempt to derail the suit. Fisker is also supposedly looking to move the case to Orange County, but we haven’t heard an update on that. According to the San Mateo court record, there’s a case management conference scheduled for late August. We’ll watch the court case docket and let you know what’s up next.