http://www.ksbw.com/r/28586219/detail.html A Salinas car manufacturing company that was expected to build environmentally friendly electric cars and create new jobs folded before almost any cars could run off the assembly line. The city of Salinas had invested more than half a million dollars in Green Vehicles, an electric car start-up company. All of that money is now gone, according to Green Vehicles President and Co-Founder Mike Ryan. The start-up company set up shop in Salinas in the summer of 2009 after the city gave Ryan a $300,000 community development grant. When the company still ran into financial trouble last year, the city of Salinas handed to Ryan an additional $240,000 in investment money.
Before a government (city, state, or Federal) grants money to a startup company, does it investigate the company's probability of success, as a bank does before making a loan decision? Not that banks are very good at it, but at least they try a little.
I'd be interested to see how much money Mike Ryan contributed to the coffers of elected Salinas City officials. For $300k, you could hardly secure a lease on a manufacturing facility, let alone try to set up an assembly line.
That wasn't their only source of funds, obviously. I saw a report that says they raised over $2 million, which still seems like a rather small amount. barfo
No one has mentioned it, so I will, although it would really be a more satisfying comment coming from someone on the libertarian side. The company folded because it was unable to get a much larger government grant it was counting on. Now that that's out of the way, I have to think either their technology was no good, or the CEO is lousy at raising money. There is money available for electric vehicles. The company that gets it right (times it right) could be huge. barfo
What a surprise... the public sector sucks at investing in technology. Maybe they should try something other than picking the word "green" and then throwing darts.
