Would-be automaker drops plans to build plant in Ouachita Parish
Start-up auto manufacturer Next Autoworks Co. has withdrawn its application for more than $320 million in federal loans that would have funded a plant in Ouachita Parish, thus ending a project that had been more than two years in the making.
Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret (MOR’-ay) says the state is disappointed that Next Autoworks was unable to secure financing necessary to move the project forward.
Lincoln Parish News Online 
11/23/2011 at 6:15 pm |
I’m glad to see this turkey bit the dust, and right at Thanksgiving! How appropriate.
Something else to be thankful for, no doubt.
11/23/2011 at 10:27 pm |
As bad as we need jobs in North Louisiana, we could still see this con coming from a mile away. They wanted us to invest in a picture of a headlight. Are you serious? To all the people who insisted I was just being negative, I told you so!
11/24/2011 at 7:47 am |
Nice post
Thanx for sharing
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11/24/2011 at 9:27 am |
I drove the car over in May last year. It was full of innovations as a car concept as well as a company. In fact it is a real shame that they cannot continue. Looking from a distance, it is a real bureaucratic disgrace.
11/24/2011 at 9:55 am |
If it’s so hot, it would not need taxpayer money, it would survive on its own.
People are so gullible.
11/24/2011 at 10:40 am |
There never was a car. It does not matter what people say, there never was a car. No manufacturing plans, no marketing plans, no sales force, no distribution plans, no parts manufacturer or supplier. This was a sham from the get-go! It gives you some insight into the intelligence of some of our elected officials.
11/25/2011 at 8:33 am |
How come everybody in Monroe new this was a scam. Noone ever saw a vehicle prototype or proof of concept but poured tOns of tax money into it. What a bunch of morons.
11/25/2011 at 11:35 am |
The only inducement for a new company to start a domestic operation from ground up was the fed money. Without it, the only logical move is to build offshore and import…which is about to be the case with all small/cheap autos. The GM production in Shreveport is about to succumb to that business model. The mid-range models are gone from GM just as is the middle class in this country. My family used to buy Pontiac or Oldsmobile cars but now if you do not see yourself as a Buick or Cadillac person, now you are a Chevrolet fan according to General Motors and as you remember “What is good for GM is good for America”.
Ford got rid of Mercury now and guess what…they now see Ford as a more premium product that before–notice the ads that favorably compare Fusion to the Camry, etc? Soon, the last new Ranger will be sold because small trucks don’t sell well in this country anymore for what they cost to produce.
The backers for V/Next started in computers and software development…Oracle and Google. Just as Steve Jobs never let the cat out of the bag until it was ready, those companies keep their ideas and intellectual property close to their vest. If you never saw the design…that was the plan!
Did there actually need to be a dealer network for this car? It’s intended use might have been more for the car sharing networks that are growing in larger cities. Think…all the cars were to be one color and were to be wrapped with a skin like what is used for commercial vehicles.
On occasion, one learns something from reading novels because of the research that a writer does. In the case of “Wheels” by Arthur Hailey, the practice that a car company carefully segments their market by intentionally making the more expensive models look more appealing than their base models–or at least that was the premise back in the time the novel was set.
This is all to say that just as the people voicing their opinions on this thread speak without much knowledge of what they claim.
The plans for the expansion of the existing plant were real, Mr. Wade. There were over 200 sheets in the set by a company that does design build work for manufacturing companies throughout the country. I am sure that work wasn’t done for free.
Every area for the existing plant and the expansion was shown with an intended function from robot welding the frames together and rust proofing them for powder coating to the fabrication of the panels and installing of the components that arrived at docks surrounding the plant.
The CEO for the company used to oversee operations for Ford in Mexico. I’d look for a possibility for the company to explore reviving the operation there before completely abandoning ship but that might all depend on how lawless that country continues to become because of the drug related activity.
The actual question for the money that came from that federal program was how and what companies in Michigan had the inside track for the money and how enamored the administration was for seemingly “green car” solutions to be promoted for the money and for political PR. As you may know, if you have 100,000+ dollars for a Fisker or a Tesla and there’s an oil shortage/interruption around the corner, you will still be “all set” to keep your wheels in the big road. ( Yeah, we’re back to talking about the 1% folks again!)
11/25/2011 at 11:59 am |
Those 200 pages of “plans” you write about were never made public. And we filed enough public records requests to fill a book trying to learn all we could about the company, its finances, and the proposed product that we taxpayers were about to pay for.
Also not made public was the driveable prototype that toured the state last year. All we had was the word of hand-picked “journalists” who consistently wrote favorable stories about the mysterious car and the company.
So much for independent journalism here in Louisiana.
Software development strategy may indeed call for keeping everything secret until the product is unveiled. But they don’t show up at the taxpayer’s doorstep with their hand out, either.
We are very proud to have been one of the few skeptics from the start, and also proud of our reporting that went beyond the company’s press releases to show how from the start V-Vehicle did not fulfill their obligations in the very contract they signed.
11/27/2011 at 5:37 pm |
Well, its “done and gone” now so as everyone says…time to move on.
Dogs won the conference championship…going to a bowl game. Where? How ironic!
11/25/2011 at 8:55 pm |
Blah, Blah, Blah. The government run by insane loons is what is running business out of the US and “destroying the Middle Class” with schemes like V-Vehicle which skim money from the productive private economy to fund scams which politicians concoct to try to impress voters with their “economic development” prowess. Excessive regulations are promulgated by bureaucrats with agendas out the wazoo, creating a perfect storm protection racket in which the producers have to defend themselves from scam-artist lawyers and politicians by love offerings in the form of campaign donations, jobs for friends, inside info for buying stock, etc etc. All while the politicians who are causing it all try to convince the public that is is the fault of evil corporations. It is so hilarious to watch, it doesn’t even anger me any more.
11/26/2011 at 9:37 am |
The V-car people were called ‘the smartest guys in the room’ by the local media… remember this the next time both cities and the police jury tries to sell a tax…they ran ads constantly and even bought all of the city preachers lunch, paid for by our taxes, to promote a scam…the sales pitch worked, tax passed.
11/26/2011 at 4:24 pm |
Remember these have never failed:
“A fool and his money are soon parted”
“If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is”
“There’s a sucker born every minute”
Instead of Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex, we have the government-industrial complex.
11/28/2011 at 4:55 pm |
We as citizens owe Walter Abbott our gratitude for uncovering the V-Car scam. Other news sources did not.