bankruptcy

  • 2011 Saab PhoeniX Concept

    Last December Saab fans all around the world received the grim news their beloved brand was filing for bankruptcy, despite the best attempts of its then-owner, Swedish Automobile, to find a buyer interested in paying off all of Saab’s outstanding debts and investing in new products. Since then administrators have been sifting through the remaining assets in order to help raise enough money to pay off creditors. One of these remaining assets is the Saab brand itself, which several firms around the world have been keen to get their hands on. Unfortunately, General Motors, a former parent...

  • 2011 Ford Transit Connect Electric
    Azure Dynamics Bankrupt, Built Ford Transit Connect Electric

    Well, that's not particularly good news: Azure Dynamics, the company that converted a handful of Ford Transit Connect small commercial vans to electric power, filed for bankruptcy on Monday. It laid off about 120 employees at a variety of locations in MIchigan, Massachusetts, Canada, and the United...

  • Think City assembly plant, Elkhart, Indiana, Jan 2011
    Indiana Think Electric-Car Plant Stilled, Owners Quiet On Future

    A year ago, we visited the Think electric-car plant in Elkhart, Indiana. At the time, several dozen workers were turning out a trickle of Think City electric vehicles assembled from kits shipped in from Finland--with big plans for ramping up production. That never happened. Instead, last June...

  • Ener1's Dropping Share Price (17 August)
    Electric-Car Battery Maker Ener1 Files For Bankruptcy, But Isn't Dead

    Last week, lithium-ion battery specialists Ener1 made an official filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Another firm to take advantage of U.S. Department of Energy loans -- an estimated $55 million to date -- Ener1’s bankruptcy has already become the latest pawn in the (mainly Republican) battle...

  • Saab EV-1 Experimental Vehicle
    Rare EV-1 Up For Sale, But It Isn't An Electric Car

    Earlier today, our colleagues over at MotorAuthority told us about a collection of over 100 rare cars going under the hammer in Sweden. Among them, a complete EV-1. Complete with aerodynamic coupe styling, solar-powered cooling fan and a film appearance under its belt, bidding for this futuristic...

  • Employees of Aptera Motors, Vista, California, on the day it closed, Dec 2, 2011
    Aptera Collapse: How & Why It Happened, A Complete Chronology

    It's not the best photo, but it means a lot to the 19 people in it. Posed in front of a mirrored glass office building under a colorful logo, they are the final employees of the now-defunct Aptera Motors on the last day of its existence: Friday, December 2. Now we can bring you the inside...

  • THINK City on hire in the Alps

    A few weeks back we nominated the diminutive Think City electric car as one of the five electric cars you’ll still be able to buy in five years’ time -- despite the roller-coaster fortunes of the firm which makes it. Arguing that the Think City had certain Blattodean qualities when it came to surviving against the odds, we predicted it would be on sale soon after its new owner took the helm. It turns out we were right. We received a forward of a sales email sent to customers in the New York area yesterday, announcing that the 2011 Think City is now available for sale in the...

  • 2011 Think City 2+2
    Has Bankrupt Electric Car Maker Gone Russian? Da, We Think So

    It’s been bankrupt four times now, suffered delayed launches and even resorted to anthropomorphism to sell its excess stock, but now Norwegian electric car maker Think could be heading to Russia. Now with more twists than a badly subtitled daytime television Mexican telenovela, the story of...

  • Green Vehicles Triac 2.0
    Start-Up Electric Car Company Green Vehicles Folds, Costs City $500,000

    Consider today's collapse of electric car company Green Vehicles an object lesson in why it's a bad idea for cities to invest in the risky business of start-up car companies--perhaps especially start-up electric car companies. The city of Salinas, California learned that lesson today as Green...

  • Think City assembly plant, Elkhart, Indiana, Jan 2011
    Think Again: Bankrupt Electric Car Firm Heading To Turkey

    If you’ve been following the fortunes of the Norwegian electric car company Think, you’ll know that it recently filed for bankruptcy, the fourth time in its 20 year history. But if you thought the firm would disappear without trace then you’re in for disappointment as a...

  • Assembly of Think City electric cars, Elkhart, Indiana, Jan 2011
    Think Went Thunk: What Does Electric-Car Bankruptcy Teach Us?

    A little more than three weeks ago, Norwegian electric-car maker Think Global declared bankruptcy--for the fourth time, actually. In a pithy piece published a week later, Pike Research analyst Dave Hurst suggested a few lessons that can be learned from Think's latest collapse. The entire article...

  • Assembly of Think City electric cars, Elkhart, Indiana, Jan 2011
    Think Thunk: Electric Car Maker Goes Bankrupt (Again)

    Making an electric car is a particularly tough business, fraught with financial risk, engineering challenges and tough competition from small-scale and mainstream automakers alike. And in that world, some automakers will succeed in bringing electric cars to market, while others flounder at the...

  • GM Logo

    Well, give them credit for resolve, anyway. General Motors said today it was withdrawing its applications to the U.S. Department of Energy for $14.4 billion of low-interest loans under the DoE's advanced technology vehicle manufacturing program. That's the program that so far has granted loans to Ford, Nissan, and Tesla in June 2009, and added more for Fisker the following September. Under the terms of the loans, carmakers must refurbish factories to make cars or parts that are at least 25 percent more fuel-efficient than the ones they replace. Ford will use its $8 billion of loans primarily...

  • Nissan dual injector four-cylinder engine
    If EVs Kill Japan's Autopart Shops, Is The U.S. Far Behind?

    Shop owners in the sprawling Japanese industrial town of Hamamatsu are worried: They see a future where their day jobs are under threat, and even worse, by the very companies they are in business to support. What is this great thread? Globalisation? Copyright infringement? Neither - their business...

  • 2010 Chevrolet Silverado
    GM To Invest $890 Million In Making Its V-8 Engines Save Gas

    Going green on the road may involve smaller engines, electric cars, and clean diesels, but it also requires making all engines far more fuel efficient. To that end, General Motors will announce this morning that it will invest almost one billion dollars in five separate plants to build a new, far...

  • The (terrible) Chevy Volt dance from the 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show
    The Volt Song: What Happened, and What It Could Have Been

    And we thought our piece on the LA Auto Show's Volt dance was pointed. Hah! Look here. Or here, followed by here. Or here. Ouch. Like a good journalist, we wanted to know more. So we asked for an interview with Maria Rohrer, Director of Global Volt Marketing Operations at Chevrolet, to understand...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt dance, Los Angeles Auto Show, December 2009
    2011 Chevy Volt Dance: Hey GM, We Want Our Bailout Back, Now

    We don't use a lot of profanity here at the global GreenCarReports.com headquarters. But there were a whole bunch of horrified OMFGs floating around once we finally got to see the notorious Volt Dance that was unveiled at the Los Angeles Auto Show. We write about the 2011 Chevrolet Volt...

  • GM Battery Lab, Warren Technical Center
    Why $2.4 Billion of Battery Grants? To Get US Competitive in Electric Cars

    It's now clearer than ever: Electric cars are coming to showrooms near you. They will be fully competitive, their makers are deadly serious, and they will be "real cars" rather than the golf carts people seem to worry about. At GreenCarReports.com, we've experienced the 2011 Chevrolet Volt mule...

  • Alan Taub, General Motors head of Research and Development

    Alan Taub, 54, is currently Executive Director in charge of Research & Development at General Motors. He joined GM R+D as executive director in 2001, and on October 1, he will replace Larry Burns as the company's Vice President of R+D. GreenCarReports.com interviewed Dr. Taub directly after his promotion was announced, one of a series of upper management changes made last month as GM started to emerge from bankruptcy with tens of billions of dollars of US government loans. Taub worked at Ford Motor Company for eight years, where he managed the materials science department, oversaw North...

  • Bond Holders View of GM
  • Black Chevy Volt 2
    GM To License Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive? Nope.

    In a live webchat on Friday, our illustrious Editor-In-Chief, Lyle Dennis, posed a question to GM North America President, Troy Clarke, regarding collaboration with Toyota, given the American automaker's failed economic state.Dennis: What are some possible options under consideration for GM’s...

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