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Startup US car company
Startup car company to locate in Louisiana
Posted Thursday, Jun 18, 2009, 3:09 pm in Employee News
In another sign the South is emerging as the nation’s center of automobile output, a startup company plans to assemble a new fuel-efficient car in Louisiana, employing an estimated 1,400 people once production starts, the Associated Press reported.
San Diego-based V-Vehicle Co. will take over a vacant plant in Monroe, La., Gov. Bobby Jindal said at a news conference, the AP said. The state put up an incentive package of $67 million to fund improvements and expansion of the plant, while Monroe-area local governments put up another $15 million, the story said.
Former Oracle Corp. executive Frank Varasano, who founded VVC in 2006, said the company has applied for $340 million in loans from the federal government, according to the news service. The loans would come from a $25 billion pool of money approved by Congress in 2007 to spur automotive technology, the AP said.
VVC vice president Horst Metz said production would begin in about 18 months. Besides Varasano, investors in the project include the venture capital fund of Kleiner, Perkins Caufield & Byers, energy investor T. Boone Pickens, who has been pushing for increased use of wind-generated and other alternative power, and Louisiana trucking magnate James Davison, who bought the vacant plant in 2007, the story said. (Associated Press/Detroit News)
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Rick
Nitro Year: 2007 (1 of 113,000 sold)
Nitro Model: R/T 4X4 Stone White
CAT-BACK Exhaust, CAI, Projector Head Lamps
Fully-Equipped w/all factory options
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