“You’re doing more than just building new vehicles. You are helping to fight our way through a vicious recession and you are building the economy of America’s future.” President Obama, 2010.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) provided $30 million to Missouri-based Smith Electric Vehicles and President Obama used the spending as an opportunity to campaign in Missouri. Hindsight now shows that it was irresponsible for the Obama administration to give Smith Electric Vehicles $30 million dollars of American taxpayers’ money because the company is closing its U.S. operations due to a “tight cash flow situation.”(i) This is not the first electric vehicle company that DOE has funded from the 2009 Stimulus package that has gone down the tubes. Fisker Automotive, a Finnish electric car maker, was provided with a $529 million DOE loan, but was cut off at $193 million when it failed to reach milestones in delivering its Karma model, an electric vehicle with a showroom cost of over $100,000.
