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We ought to be allowing the private sector to pursue every form of energy because the energy of the future, it's not going to come from the government picking winners and losers.

I know it's going to be the private sector that leads this country out of the current economic times we're in. You can spend your money better than the government can spend your money.

We're investing record sums on buses and trains. We have a huge programme to encourage people to walk and cycle, and everyone up to and including the PM has been looking closely at how we can promote electric vehicles, hybrids, and other technologies.

Nobody wants to buy a $60,000 electric Civic. But people will pay $90,000 for an electric sports car.

I have long felt that an investment by the Department of Energy of a million dollars a year for the next 30 years would pay a higher return than any other investment this country could ever make.

I'm not against government involvement in times of need. I am for recognizing that big public companies will continue to cut jobs in an effort to prop up stock prices, which in turn stimulates the need for more government involvement.

There's 20 companies that I have investments in - some batteries, some solar-thermal, one big nuclear thing. We need hundreds and hundreds of companies like that, so that in a 20-year time frame we really are starting to change the energy infrastructure.

We really need a public-interest government that is not taking marching orders from the fossil-fuel industry and the banks and the war profiteers. We really need a government that is acting on our behalf.

Of course we want to pocket Fisker. But we will bid rationally. Whatever the result, nothing can stop us from making electric cars.