Community | January 27, 2012 | 11 comments

Another Obama-Backed Green Company Files for Bankruptcy

source: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/ener1-parent-obama-backed-green-company-files-bankruptcy/story...

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JohnA
The parent company of an electric car battery maker that received more than $100 million in government funding from the Obama administration has filed for bankruptcy protection, the company announced Thursday.

Alex Sorokin, the CEO for lithium-ion battery manufacturer Ener1, said the company suffered when demand for the batteries dropped as fewer Americans than expected opted for electric cars.

"This was a difficult, but necessary, decision for our company," Sorokin said in a statement on its website. "We moved aggressively to reduce costs and shift focus when the marketplace did not evolve as quickly as anticipated. Our business plan was impacted when demand for lithium-ion batteries slowed due to lower-than-expected adoption for electric passenger vehicles."

EnerDel, a subsidiary of Ener1 dedicated to making batteries for electric cars, was awarded a $118 million grant from the Energy Department in 2009 as part of President Obama's economic stimulus package and green energy push. Ener1 said that the bankruptcy filing and newly announced company restructuring would allow its subsidiaries, including EnerDel, to "continue normal operation."

The filing came exactly a year after Vice President Joe Biden visited an Ener1 manufacturing plant in Indiana where he proclaimed the company was the "start" to reshaping the way Americans drive and "the way Americans power their lives."

"A year and a half ago, this administration made a judgment. We decided it's not sufficient to create new jobs -- we have to create whole new industries," Biden told the plant workers then. "We're back in the game."

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/ener1-parent-obama-backed-green-company-files-bank...
  1. groups:
    Community,   Politics,   US Politics,   Election 2012,   2 more
  2. tags:
    Barack Obama,  solyndra,  Ener1
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11 comments // Another Obama-Backed Green Company Files for Bankruptcy

  • Radical_Centrist
    • +3
      Radical_Centrist  

    • Howe in the Hell can this be called an Obama Backed Company? Where in the world did Obama get as Hundred Million $$$? This was a TAXPAYER backed Company. The Liberals would call this Capitalism at Work. Ron Paul and I would call it Crony Corporatism at work. The Government has no business taking my Tax Money and giving it to private Corporations. Goldman-Sachs gave him almost a Million and got 13 Billion in return; I wonder how much you have to donate to get 100 Million?

    • 4 months ago
  • kvb1
    • -1
      kvb1  

    • What we have is an opportunity to study how business makes decisions and how industries can be ruined. You cannot make and industry from nothing if you do not provide the end user a reward for spending more money on a new technology. This is not like going from CRT to LED TVs. Further, you need and infrastructure to support these new vehicles. Funding solar energy plants, is great but you also have to fund the rebuilding of the grid. Funding Li-On batteries manufacturers is great, but you have to fund their use to get them off the ground, then you have to fund the recharging industry. Does government have to do it all, No. But it does have to create the environment for that industry to grow. Tax break for end users, tax breaks for infrastructure builders/creators.

      It is the naysayers, those that call the President an ass-clown without having anything of substance to say, that prevent the country from moving forward. The definition of conservative is disposed to maintaining existing views, conditions, or institutions. the definition of progressive is moving forward or onward: Advancing.

      It is long past the time that CONservatives get their heads out of the sand and work to make things better rather than trying to maintain the status quo at all costs.

    • 4 months ago
  • JohnA
    • +3
      JohnA  
    • kvb1:

      Shouldn't the reward to the end user be the product itself? If you build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door, you know? Look at Apple, no one even heard of a smart phone 10 years ago now people can't live without them, and government didn't put up a dime. In your scenario, people are getting the end product for the tax breaks, and not for the product itself. The end product could be shit, but no one cares, they're just doing it for the tax breaks anyway, and once the tax breaks go away, you've got a lot of shit product no one wants. If a product is good and desireable, for whatever reason, the free market will force demand, and production and infrastucture will go up to meet that demand on it's own. Supply and demand, has worked for thousands of years, no government neccessary.

    • 4 months ago
  • kvb1
    • -2
      kvb1  
    • JohnA:

      "If a product is good and desirable, for whatever reason, the free market will force demand, and production and infrastructure will go up to meet that demand on it's own".

      That was the case with Windows. The free market did not make that product better, nor for that matter any other product. Cars are not better today than they were 20 years ago, just have more stuff in them. CAFE rates are still ridiculously low, even though consumer will pay for a high mileage vehicle. The same can be true with investing, just look at the last 12 years and how that f'd up everything.

      The market is not the always the answer. We would not be here typing this stuff to each other if it were not for the GOVERNMENT designing and building the internet. We would not be communicating over the planet if it were not for the GOVERNMENT designing and deploying satellites and demonstrating their viability. The government is NOT the answer for everything, however it is governments that drive BIG changes.

    • 4 months ago
  • Paratus
  • Radical_Centrist
  • congoboy
  • Truthitswhatsfordinner
  • congoboy
  • 2hellnwait
    • +5
      2hellnwait  

    • . . . and another dozen sliding down the drain,
      when are people really going to get it that this is all about payback to O'bamas campaign bundler's and absolutely about nothing else?

    • 4 months ago
  • dcrog
    • +2
      dcrog  

    • Yeah, sometimes reality stings, it's obvious that all the so-called green "industries" were just dirty little ways Obama could pay back his big campaign contributors. Should we really expect anything different from that ass clown? Another good example of the criminal behavior of Marxists; unions extorting dues from hard working members who have no say in how political "contributions" are dealt with by the bosses/thugs, but many of their pension plans are not fully funded. Or, or, or, the public employee unions who take wages paid by tax payers and contribute it to "democrat" campaigns to support candidates who increase taxes, tax payer funded employment, and debt! Wow, WTF is going on here?!?

    • 4 months ago
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