Electric car startup Fisker Automotive, along with its plug-in sports car, is turning out to be one of the worst venture capital bets of all time. We asked GigaOM readers a variety of questions about what they think will happen to Fisker and what they think will be the broader implications of and lessons learned from Fisker’s high-profile crash and burn. Here are the results. Read more »
Here’s the details of the class action lawsuit filed against Coda Automotive that I referenced yesterday: it’s a complaint that Coda Automotive allegedly violated the WARN Act, that requires large employers to give employees 60 days written notice of mass layoffs. Read more »
While Fisker is in the spot light for failing to pay back its close to $200 million loan from the DOE, there were a half dozen other alternative car startups that wanted loans from the DOE but were rejected. Was the DOE’s ATVM performance all that bad? Read more »
We bring you the behind the scenes story of how electric car startup Fisker Automotive spent over a billion dollars, took down a government loan and ultimately delivered about 2,000 cars, a small fraction of what it originally promised. Read more »
Swedish thin film solar manufacturer startup Midsummer is taking a cue from optical disc manufacturing for its solar panels, but is facing a difficult solar market. Read more »
Following Fisker’s decision to layoff 160 employees, or 75 percent of its staff, last week, the company has been hit with a class action lawsuit for allegedly violating the WARN Act, which says large companies need to give employees 60 days notice for mass layoffs. Read more »
The headline-blaring, jaw-dropping tech company crash and burn doesn’t happen all that often. But when it does, you can count on there being some similarities in leadership, transparency, and hype. Read more »
Beleagured Chinese solar giant, Suntech Power, was once the largest solar maker in the world. This week the company was forced into bankruptcy. But it’s not all bad news. Read more »
The days of startups building custom-made, capital-intensive machines to produce next-gen energy products is over. Today’s energy entrepreneurs are using standard machines from sectors like the chip industry, the lithium ion battery industry and printing. Read more »
The similarities between Solyndra and SoloPower are getting closer and closer. Read more »
Tesla CEO Elon Musk pledges to pay back the company’s loan to the Department of Energy in five years instead of ten. Musk says if the DOE should be criticized for failures like Solyndra it should be praised for successes like Tesla. Read more »
It’s official. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu says he will step down and will likely return to academic life and teaching. Read more »
In a surprising move, President Obama called out the need to fight climate change and transition to cleaner energy sources in his inauguration speech on Monday morning. While Obama’s first term provided many resources for clean energy, the administration’s support became controversial and politicized. Read more »
The fourth quarter in cleantech saw attention paid to two prominent, publicly traded companies: EV maker Tesla and newly minted public listing SolarCity. It remains a transitional period for the sector as investment declines, with a shift toward those companies able to scale with little additional capital. Read more »
Solar makers are getting squeezed in a difficult global solar market, but the growth of solar panel installations continues to soar. This should all make 2013 a very interesting year for solar startups. Here’s 13 solar startups to watch in 2013: Read more »
Alta Devices has spent the past year courting the military with its highly efficient solar cells, which could go into mobile chargers to help lighten a soldier’s pack. Read more »
In 2013 cleantech investing will move toward companies serving unsubsidized markets where software plays a role in reducing power consumption. In many ways this is a return to plays for energy efficiency, and there’s still money to be made from business models built around saving energy. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Another thin film solar company stumbles. Global Solar appears to be a casualty of an imbalance of supply and demand that has persisted for two years and knocked out dozens of solar manufacturers worldwide. Read more »
The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) sided with U.S. solar manufacturers in a dispute that Chinese solar cell makers have been benefiting from illegal subsidies. As a result Chinese solar makers will face tariffs. Read more »
An outlier appeared this week that seemed more consistent with 2006, rather than 2012. A group of high-profile venture capitalists put a large round into a potentially capital intensive next-gen energy technology, showing there’s still room for some of these big energy ideas to be funded. Read more »
As Obama is projected to have won the Presidential election, clean energy and cleantech supporters cheer and hope for four more years of support for the development of next-gen energy technologies. Read more »
Will Advanced Equities’ charges from the SEC, and subsequent settlement, linger as an issue for Bloom Energy? As part of the settlement, Advanced Equities has to attempt to accommodate any investor in the fund in question if they want to sell the securities. Read more »
If the world wants solutions to its most intractable problems — getting enough food, water and fuel for 9 billion people, for example — entrepreneurs must be able to try out big ideas. And fail sometimes. Read more »
A regional winner of the Cleantech Open hopes to win over investors with an idea of designing factory equipment to make super efficient solar cells. But given the dark clouds that hang over the solar manufacturing business, the startup will need more than luck. Read more »
SunPower was hoping this year would be better than last, but the company is forcing to do what many of its rivals have done: cut production and employees in order to reduce costs and survive. Read more »
Solyndra may not be a player in the solar market anymore, but it’s making new headlines with its latest lawsuit against Chinese companies, which it says have colluded to sell solar panels at below cost and drive competitors out of business. Read more »
SolarCity filed to go public in April, but we are only now getting a glimpse of its IPO plan. The company is proposing to raise roughly $201 million and join the NASDAQ family. Read more »
Solyndra not surprisingly got a mention in the first Presidential debates on Wednesday night as a symbol of misplaced spending. But another cleantech company surprisingly got lumped into the mix, too: Tesla. My thoughts: Tesla is no Solyndra. Read more »
Silicon Valley solar startup, SoloPower, is turning on its first large-scale factory in Oregon at a time when many solar manufacturers have crashed and burned. The factory will pave the way for the company to use a $197 million federal loan guarantee to expand its factory. Read more »
It’s the one year anniversary of the bankruptcy of solar maker Solyndra! What will you do on this most special day? Oh wait, you’re sick of this story and topic? Here’s how we got here. Read more »
Amid a solar market with an oversupply of solar panels, Silevo, a California company with a factory in China, is working on expanding its production and convincing customers that its novel hybrid silicon technology is worth their investments. Read more »
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Despite raising $500 million in funding for its thin film solar panel technology, Miasole is restructuring and laying off around 200 people, according to a report. Read more »
What’s new with venture-backed solar thin film maker HelioVolt? The company has stayed fairly quiet since a big funding announcement last fall and is taking part in a small project in its hometown of Austin, Texas. Read more »
There is still not a solar panel capable of displacing electricity from fossil fuels. Disruption calls for smart innovation; several companies are ready for the challenge. The clear winner will be the solar-energy player that breaks new records in solar efficiency without the breaking the bank. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
As the 2012 election unfolds and debates about clean energy foment, looking back at the history of energy subsides tells us how the bulk of subsidies have gone to fossil fuels. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
This quarter the EV market struggled to find its footing. Meanwhile, the smart-grid sector solidified and low-power technology proved itself important in the data center. Read more to learn what these news pieces and others mean for the larger space over the next few months. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
It’s not meant to be after all. Solar power plant developer BrightSource Energy, plans to withdraw its plan to go public because of poor market conditions, the company said Wednesday night. Read more »
Brightsource Energy could go public as early as Thursday on the Nasdaq, and with that move the solar power plant developer will be making history. Read more »
The solar death spiral has been long and ugly. Over the past year, there have been over a dozen stalwarts and startups that have headed to bankruptcy court. Here’s our chart: Read more »
Q-Cells was once the largest solar cell maker in the world. Now the company says on Monday it’s filing for bankruptcy, which makes it the latest example of an industry turmoil that has forced many other manufactures out of the business as well. Read more »
