DoE Program That Funded Tesla, Fisker To Restart; Alcoa In Line For Loan?

It's baaaaaaaaack.

The U.S. Department of Energy's $25 billion low-interest loan program may be about to start awarding new loans.

The DoE's Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing (ATVM) program endured intense political criticism for funding not only electric-car maker Tesla Motors but also Fisker Automotive, on which it ultimately lost $139 million.

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Tesla, on the other hand, paid off its entire loan in May 2013, several years early, using the proceeds from issuing more stock.

The ATVM program awards low-interest loans to assist companies in producing vehicles with substantially higher energy efficiency than the models they replace.

It also notably loaned $5.9 billion to Ford, within a few months of the time that the U.S. government bailed out and restructured its domestic competitors General Motors and

Chrysler. Those funds were largely used to expands the company's production of downsized, turbocharged EcoBoost engines.

ALSO SEE: Advanced Auto-Tech Loans Go To Tesla, Ford, and Nissan (June 2009)

And it also loaned $1.6 billion to Nissan, which used the funds to add Leaf electric-car production to its assembly plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, along with a new and adjacent plant for lithium-ion cell fabrication.