China billionaire snaps up taxpayer-backed car maker

[Hum]

Fisker Automotive -- the U.S. electric car company that failed to repay roughly $139 million in federal loans before going bankrupt -- is now owned by a Chinese company eager to unleash its cut-rate acquisition on the American auto industry.

The company?s assets were acquired earlier this year by China's biggest auto parts supplier, Wanxiang Group, for $149.2 million in a U.S. bankruptcy auction.

The company reportedly could start selling Fisker?s ill-fated Karma plug-in car later this year in the United States and Europe.

Billionaire company founder and Chairman Lu Guanqiu has aspired to get into the auto industry since the 1980s and the electric-car business for roughly the past 15 years.

And the acquisition of Fisker and its battery supplier, A123 Systems, which each came with key patents, should make Guanqiu's company well positioned to compete.

 

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[D. S. Veteran]

I sense a patent war is coming...

[Hum]

I hope Apple stays out of it. :p