GE Capital: Kentucky Zap deal? What Kentucky Zap deal?
Click on image above for a high-res gallery of the Zap Xebra PK
A little addendum to lasts week's post about Zap's setback with its Kentucky plant. It had been reported that one problem with getting that plant started was that GE Capital withdrew its offer to buy $125 million in bonds for the factory. Instead, it seems that GE Capital never made such a promise, as both Manufacturing.net and the Louisville Courier-Journal are now reporting. This goes against the statements by Integrity Manufacturing CEO Randall Waldman that there had been a "verbal commitment" from GE. Integrity was to build the plant and produce Zap Xebras - and more, including the Alias - there. When the plant had its groundbreaking in September, Zap was bullish that the factory would "begin producing electric vehicles within 12 months and employ up to 1,000 people initially with the possibility of more in the future." There are still 10 months to go to figure this out and prove Zap right.
Gallery: Zap Alias EV in Kentucky
[Source: Manufacturing.net, Courier-Journal]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Serge 2:53PM (11/26/2008)
Smart deal, what Smart deal?
The crookery continues.
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EVan 5:03PM (11/26/2008)
Surprise...?
Verbal commitment... 125 million dollars... seriously? With that much money trading hands a verbal commitment is a joke.
Zap is probably less guilty of being stupid though than the press that reported with great fanfare the whole project in the first place. These guys are single-handedly destroying the reputation of green start-ups everywhere by being such sneaky, deceitful, and downright dirty purveyors of vapor ware and bull shit.
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jpm 5:08PM (11/26/2008)
This just goes to show you, once again, that Zap is a shady company selling low quality crap.
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jake 2:05AM (11/27/2008)
I'll give them the 10 months to figure this out, but seems like Zap consistently fails to deliver. Doesn't serve well for the reputation of green startups as mentioned. If their product was a little more compelling, I would tend to forgive them, but all of their most compelling concept vehicles never seem to make it to the market :P
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Doug 12:05PM (11/27/2008)
"Integrity" seems to be what's missing in dealings concerning Zap.
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Chris M 6:18PM (11/27/2008)
"integrity Manufacturing".
Well, that sure was misnamed!
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jtrain 2:36PM (12/02/2008)
Read my lips.
The ALIAS will never happen.
It's the same old song and dance that has floated ZAP's managerial payroll for the last 10 years.
If you can't make money on your crappy products, at least you can cash in on your stocks.
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