General Motors laid off the last workers at the 142-acre General Motors property and shut the works in the late 2000s. Former Vice President Joe Biden, who in his six successful campaigns for a U.S. Senate seat from Delaware appealed for votes to United Auto Workers members at the plant, in 2009 returned to announce a government-funded project to turn it into an electric-car plant for Fisker Auto. That failed to materialize, costing the state $21 million and the federal government more than $150 million in useless public subsidies.