DOE

Fisker Automotive CEO Tony Posawatz didn't attend yesterday's House committee hearing on the company's loan from the U.S. Department of Energy. He's out desperately seeking saviors to avert bankruptcy for the struggling startup electric-car maker, but he still may have had the better day. The title...

The fortunes of the two highest-profile electric-car startups couldn't be diverging more starkly today. Yesterday, Fisker Automotive failed to make a payment of $10 million on the $192 million of low-interest loan funds it received from the U.S. Department of Energy. And tomorrow company executives...

In January 2005, legendary car designer Henrik Fisker founded a company to bring innovative new thinking to the automobile industry. Between that date and today, Fisker Automotive would create perhaps the most beautiful car ever made, raise almost $1.4 billion dollars from investors as diverse as...

What a difference a few years makes. Startup electric-car maker Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] said it will repay its $465 million in low-interest loans from the U.S. Department of Energy five years earlier than originally scheduled. The news came yesterday in the company's annual report. Sourcing Tesla...

The price of gasoline will creep up faster than expected, the U.S. Department of Energy's latest figures show. Its monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook had previously put regular-grade gasoline at an average of $3.44 per gallon, but it's now expected to reach 11 cents higher. That's still lower than...

For Fisker Automotive these days, no news is probably good news. Its latest CEO, Tony Posawatz, has been at the helm for four months now. And Fisker is putting all its efforts toward developing and producing its next model, the Atlantic mid-size sport sedan, by late 2014. In a recent Fox News...

Oh, those DoE loans. They arose in the recent U.S. presidential debate--not just once or twice, but three times--and continue to generate debate. So here's more fuel for the fire: A company rejected three years ago for loans is now suing the DoE. Its proposed product? An inflatable electric car...

Yesterday, the California Energy Commission approved a $10 million grant to Tesla Motors which it said would help the electric automaker prepare for the launch of its second mass-produced car, the Tesla Model X Crossover SUV. Under the terms of the agreement, Tesla will have to match the $10...

Ask most people about Chrysler's plug-in hybrid prototype program, and you'll get something like, "Huh? Chrysler has plug-in hybrids?" In fact, the company does: 23 minivans and 109 pickup trucks on the roads for almost a year now, all prototypes to test the technology. Today, the company announced...

There's kind of a running joke within the electric car world that the next generation of batteries is just a decade away. And the next time you ask, it's still a decade away. Even a decade later. Well, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, the next generation of usable battery technology...

The U.S. Department of Energy hasn't made any new loans under its Advanced Technology Vehicle Program in well over a year. At its current rate, it may never do so. The latest company to walk away from applications for low-interest loans from the $25 billion DoE program is Chrysler. This afternoon...

The bad news just keeps on coming from electric-car startup Fisker Automotive. The company said today that it has laid off employees and contractors at both its new Anaheim, California, headquarters and its assembly facility in Wilmington, Delaware. Layoffs by car companies are hardly new, but...

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...

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...

Fisker Automotive may have sensed that the 20-mpg EPA rating on their 2012 Karma electric sport sedan was not good news. The company simply omitted the statistic from their press release announcing that the EPA had legally certified the Karma--meaning it can now be sold to retail buyers. Fisker...

Consumers and automakers both know that range anxiety is a huge barrier standing between shoppers and electric vehicles. But soon, EV owners will have yet another tool in their anti-anxiety toolkit, and it comes from a partnership between GPS heavyweight TomTom and charging station manufacturer...

By far the most ambitious plan to build and assemble electric cars in the U.S. comes not from General Motors or Ford, but from Nissan. Now, it may happen a little later than expected, due to the March 11 earthquake and resulting tsunami that severely damaged large portions of Japan's industrial...

You probably drive a gasoline car. And surely you've heard of cars with diesel engines. But how about a car with an engine that burns both fuels, at the same time? That's what Chrysler is working on, it turns out, funded in part with research dollars from the U.S. Department of Energy. Author Mike...

Well, looks like Chrysler is getting closer to playing with the big kids at last. The back-from-bankruptcy third U.S. automaker, now effectively controlled by Italy's Fiat, is putting together a financial package that will allow it to pay off all the money invested in it by the Obama Administration...

The big unknown in global efforts to reduce carbon emissions is China. It is industrializing at a rapid pace, and a burgeoning middle class has savings galore to spend on its first automobiles--including luxury European brands. By some estimates, the world's current 800 million vehicles will grow...