#GovernmentLoans

House Republicans are looking to kill the loan program that helped give  Fisker and Tesla life.

Despite criticism by Republican lawmakers, the Department of Energy loan program designed to encourage alternative vehicles is ready to resume.

As expected, Tesla has repaid its government loan nine years early, becoming the first American automaker to have paid back the government.

Elon Musk, Tesla’s ever enigmatic CEO, announced over Twitter that the company will likely repay its government debt by Wednesday, May 22. 

The U.S. Department of Energy recovered $21 million from Fisker Automotive, the floundering company behind the Karma plug-in hybrid luxury car.

Fisker seems to be falling on hard times, and a new report suggests the brand might be on the market with Chinese firm Dongfeng Motor Corp tossing a $350 million offer into the ring.

During the closing speech at this year’s National Automobile Dealers’ Association convention in Las Vegas on February 6, former president George W. Bush said he’d bail out US automakers again in a heartbeat if he had to.

Late Thursday night the US Treasury Department agreed to sell its remaining 6% stake in Chrysler to Fiat, with a price tag of $500 million. And with this decision, not only does the Italian carmaker control Chrysler, but now the government finally gets rid of its involvement with the auto industry, once and for all. “As Treasury exits its investment in Chrysler, it’s clear that President Obama’s decision to stand behind and restructure this company was the right one,” said Tim Geithner, Treasury Secretary.

Fiat already holds a not-insubstantial 46 percent share in Chrysler. But even though Chrysler and the U.S. and Canadian governments have finally completed business, the two still hold a 6.6% share in equity stakes, with 1.7% of that belonging to Canada and the rest to the U.S. Treasury Department.

In a statement from the auto maker, it says “Chrysler Group intends to complete the repayment during the second quarter of 2011 from proceeds of a new term loan facility and newly issued debt securities to be offered and sold to institutional investors in a private offering exempt from registration under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933.”

It’s no secret that Saab has been struggling since becoming ‘independent.’ The company, purchased from GM by Spyker last year has continued to face financial and supply problems, which has stunted production and resulted in sales falling far short of projected targets.

Over in the U.K., Lotus is looking at the British government to help out in the same capacity. Lotus is saying, that unless the government backs them up, they will have to resort to looking at producing vehicles outside of the United Kingdom.

As Europe struggles to deal with economic uncertainty in wake of the P-I-G-S crisis, General Motor’s European operations has elected to withdraw its application for government Loan Guarantees. According to sources within GM, the process of securing the loan guarantees has become increasingly complex and is taking longer than anticipated. Although some governments had already committed loan guarantees – particularly Spain and the U.K., uncertainty from others, including Germany, at a time when GM has already committed it’s Opel/Vauxhall brands to new programs and technologies, means that the General has decided to withdraw all applications and instead source the money required internally.