Fisker Automotive to Romney: Who Are You Calling ‘Loser’?

Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney may be a Michigan-bred entrepreneur with a successful career in business, but the man knows little about the electric vehicle sector.

During his first debate with President Barack Obama, Romney labeled upstart automakers Fisker Automotive and Tesla Motors as “losers.” The commentary came as the Republican presidential candidate was railing against Department of Energy and other federal loans provided to green energy companies under the Obama administration, despite some of those loans being issued during the Bush administration. He specifically called out four companies as failures in the marketplace.

“You put $90 billion, like 50 years’ worth of breaks, into solar and wind, to Solyndra and Fisker and Tesla and Ener1,” Romney said to Obama. (Some transcripts have Romney saying “Tester” instead of “Tesla.”) “I mean, I had a friend who said you don’t just pick the winners and losers, you pick the losers, all right?”

“We don’t consider ourselves a loser having sold 1,500 cars already, raised over $1.2 billion of private equity and now expanding our export markets to GCC and China,” Fisker spokesman Roger Ormisher told Wired on Thursday. “We believe that is a quite an achievement for a small American business.”