The winner between two Chinese-backed bidders for the assets of bankrupt US electric car maker Fisker Automotive would have to keep manufacturing and research in the US, energy secretary Ernest Moniz was quoted as saying.
Hybrid Tech Holdings and Wanxiang America are competing in US bankruptcy court for the remains of Fisker, an Energy Department loan recipient that stopped making luxury plug-in hybrid cars in 2012, Bloomberg News reported.
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“I’m not going to pick a winner of the auction,” Moniz said at the Washington Auto Show after giving a speech.
“What’s key for us is of course the terms of our loan have to be respected. We have technology transfer limitations first of all. No matter who the winner is we will be looking at both engineering and manufacturing in the US. That’s the key for us.”
Bloomberg noted that Fisker in 2013 defaulted on a $529m low interest loan from the US Energy Department after drawing down about $192m. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November after Hybrid agreed to acquire the rights to the defaulted loan for $25m, the report added.
