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Luxury automaker Fisker Automotive is buying a shuttered General Motors assembly plant in Delaware to produce plug-in hybrid electric cars, officials said Tuesday.
The California-based company has signed a letter of intent with Motors Liquidation Co., formerly known as General Motors Corp., to buy the Wilmington plant for $18 million after a four-month evaluation period.
Fisker, which recently won approval for $528.7 million in government loans to develop plug-ins, expects to spend an additional $175 million to refurbish the facility before production of next-generation hybrids begins in late 2012.
Fisker expects Project NINA will create or support 2,000 factory jobs and more than 3,000 vendor and supplier jobs by 2014, with full production capacity of between 75,000 and 100,000 vehicles a year. More than half the cars will be exported.
Gov. Mitch Daniels will be in Huntington today to make an announcement about jobs at 1000 E. Market St., the Indiana Economic Development Corp. said Tuesday.
Blair West of the economic development corporation declined to give details of the governor’s announcement, but the 2:30 p.m. news conference will be held in the same location that Vermont Castings Majestic Products Co. announced it was laying off its 215 manufacturing employees in February 2004.
The plant made gas, wood and electric fireplaces and gas grills.
Consumers for the first time this year are paying more on average for a gallon of gasoline than they did 12 months ago, according to data released Tuesday.
There is a good chance that this week, retail gasoline will surpass peak summer prices reached just over four months ago during the driving season when prices are usually at their highest.
Pump prices are following crude higher and refiners are now cutting back on production because the cost of the crude that they convert to fuel has been rising so fast.
Crude futures rose again Tuesday and for the 14th straight day, so did retail gasoline prices.
Norfolk Southern Corp., one of the country’s biggest railroad operators, said Tuesday its third-quarter earnings fell 41 percent as shipments sank for everything from coal for power plants to retail goods.
The sluggish results were widely expected and in line with earnings reports from other rails this month.
Norfolk Southern, based in Norfolk, Va., earned $303 million, or 81 cents per share, compared with $520 million, or $1.37 per share in the third quarter of 2008. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters forecast 94 cents per share.
Shares of American International Group Inc. fell Tuesday as the company continues to face challenges in repaying government funds.
The insurer’s recent loss of executives to the company of former CEO Maurice “Hank” Greenberg might further complicate its efforts to pay back more than $180 billion, a report published in the New York Times said Tuesday.
Shares of AIG fell $1.75, or 4.8 percent, to $34.50 in afternoon trading.
