Investment community gives Tesla Motors vote of confidence

Green energy and electric vehicles are an easy target for politicians at the best of times, but even more so when they fail, taking down millions in unpaid government loans with them. Fisker Automotive isn't dead yet but it does owe the U.S. Department of Energy a large proportion of the $193 million it spent getting the Karma electric vehicle to market.

DETROIT — The founder and executive chairman of Fisker Automotive Inc resigned from the cash-strapped “green car” startup on Wednesday, saying he was at odds with the automaker’s top executives over business strategy. Henrik Fisker announced his abrupt departure from the maker of the Karma plug-in hybrid in an email. He declined to describe the nature of the disagreements that prompted him to leave the company, which he founded with Barny Koehler in 2007.

It turns out that when peddling a flaming paperweight (recall "Total Karma Recall: Fisker Pulls All Cars Due To Fire Risk", "As Another Fisker Karma Spontaneously Combusts, "Green" Dreams Go Up In Smoke" and of course "Fisker Karma Is First Car To Burn Underwater"), even if it is a very pretty

Elon Musk did not join Tesla Motors, take the helm as CEO, and pour hefty amounts of his own cash into the company with the hope of getting money back, he said tonight at the Wall Street Journal's D: All Things Digital Conference.

The last few weeks have made painful reading for fans of electric car startup Fisker Automotive. It seems fate has a few more nails to bang in to Fisker's coffin.

Henrik Fisker, co-founder and executive chairman of electric car company Fisker Automotive, quit the company today.

Last week, the Chinese company Wanxiang got U.S. government approval to buy bankrupt lithium-ion cell maker A123 Systems.

In 2009, Fisker Automotive was an exciting company: With Detroit in shambles and a huge loan from the federal government, the startup automaker had plans to change the industry. It was going to build 100,000 cars a year in Delaware and save or create 5,000 jobs. The Karma, its gorgeous, extremely efficient plug-in hybrid electric car, was on the way.