The US government granted a conditional loan of $528.7 million to electric car maker, Fisker Automotive for the development of affordable, fuel-efficient plug-in hybrid electric cars.

The $528.7-million low-interest loan was given by the US Department of Energy from its $25-billion programme established in 2008 to fund development of alternative vehicles as well as meet the country's stringent fuel efficiency standards.

The department has already lent $8 billion under the project to carmakers like Ford Motor, Japan's Nissan Motor, electric car startup Tesla Motors and other automakers and suppliers.

Although General Motors and Chrysler have also applied for loans under the programme, both the carmakers are yet to receive money from the government for making green cars.

The Obama administration has plans of putting more than 1 million plug-in hybrids on the road by 2015.

Of the $528-million loan given to Fisker, a major part of the money will go towards Project NINA that makes user-friendly cars, for designing, engineering and assembly of Fisker Automotive's next-generation plug-in hybrids.

Project NINA, will make user-friendly plug-in car, which will be manufactured in the US and would be costing around $47,400. The automaker has not yet finalised the manufacturing location for Project NINA, but plans to sell nearly 100,000 of these cars annually from 2012.

About $170 million of the loan will be used to help finalise development of the Fisker Karma plug-in hybrid car and also develop lower cost models.

However, the Fisker Karma will not be built in the US, but by Finland-based Valmet Automotive with whom Fisker had signed a contract in July 2008 to assemble the Karma. It will still qualify for the energy department loan since 65 per cent of the vehicle's components will be sourced from US suppliers.

California-based Fisker Automotive, founded in 2007 as a joint venture between Fisker Coachbuild, and Quantum Technologies, is a privately-owned American car company producing premium green automobiles.

The company is backed by venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Palo Alto Investors and the Qatar Investment Authority.

The company's only existing product, the Fisker Karma is a plug-in hybrid sportscar, which was unveiled at the North American International Auto Show  in January 2008.

Fisker intends to sell its newer model, the Karma PHEV in late 2009 in the US and in Europe by the second quarter of 2010. The company claims that the Karma PHEV has a range of 49.7 miles (80.0 km) on electric recharge before the gasoline range-extending engine turns on.

Fisker has adopted an innovative outsourcing model from Indian car maker M&M, which has yielded substantial cost savings for the company in producing the Mahindra Scorpio.

The carmaker only designs and sells the cars, while the engineering, components, the electric power train and manufacturing is outsourced to other companies, resulting in big cost savings.

Nearly 750 people are working in producing the Fisker Karma model, but Fisker has less than 100 people on its payroll since the manufacturing is outsourced.

This outsourcing model helps the company to develop a new car in about 2.5 years at a cost of $333 million instead of the typical five years and a cost of $1 billion.