RUSNANO will also provide $100 million in debt guarantees, while Plastic Logic’s existing investor Oak Investment Partners will add another $50 million in equity investment.

“We evaluated multiple locations and potential partners across the globe for our second factory, Plastic Logic CEO Richard Archuleta said in a statement. “We determined Russia with RUSNANO as an investment partner was the best fit for our business. RUSNANO has demonstrated it is fully invested in our goal to commercialize plastic electronics. We are gratified by the RUSNANO investment package and the continued commitment of Oak Investment Partners in bringing this disruptive technology to market.”

Plastic Logic has been showing off its plastic display technology for years (including a demo at D7), but scrapped its first product–the Que e-reader (see image), after several delays. The company said it still hopes to bring to market a business-oriented e-reader and is working to develop such a product. The company said that the Zelongrad factory, which should be ready for production by 2013 or 2014, will employ more than 300 people and have the capacity to crank out hundreds of thousands of displays per month.

“This investment signifies the potential that we see in the future of Plastic Electronics across a variety of commercial and consumer products,” RUSNANO Managing Director Georgy Kolpachev said in a statement. “Flexible plastic electronic displays will provide
another major milestone in how people process information. Entering this new disruptive segment at the stage of its inception gives Russia a chance to win a leading position in global market of future electronics.”

Despite its new Russian plans, Plastic Logic said it plans to continue investing in the Dresden, Germany, plant it opened in 2008, as well as its research and development center in Cambridge, England.

Still unclear is just how it will compete with the likes of the Kindle, iPad, Nook and the many, many other tablets and e-readers that will hit the market before anything ships from Dresden, Zelenograd or any other Plastic Logic facility.

Apple has not yet responded to a request for comment.

Not a huge number, but together with the 2.5 million units Foxconn’s main production site at Shenzhen can produce each month, it’s presumably enough to offset the inevitable spike in holiday demand. And once Chengdu’s 50 iPad production lines are up and running in 2011, Foxconn will be able to produce about 40 million iPads per year–according to Digitimes, anyway.

The move was prompted by a report published this week by a Pittsburgh-based non-profit, the National Labor Committee, which alleges a factory in Dongguan, China, operated by KYE Systems Corp. overworks young employees and houses them in harsh conditions. Microsoft devices represent a significant portion of the products made at the factory, though KYE makes products for other companies there as well, according to the report.

“The factory was really run like a minimum security prison,” Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee, said in an interview.

Representatives of KYE Systems at their Taiwan headquarters couldn’t be reached for comment.

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For Dell (DELL), which has closed its factories in Ireland and North Carolina this year, this move is one more step toward its goal of slashing $4 billion from its annual operating costs by early 2011. Said company spokesman David Frink: “[This] is part of our ongoing effort to become more efficient. The intent is to leverage the capabilities of (third-party manufacturers) so we can direct our resources to other areas of our supply chain so we can innovate and add value.”

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“Chrysler’s bankruptcy and announced factory shut-down will impact second quarter numbers by reducing the number of prepaid bundled subscriptions associated with the production and shipment of new cars,” Jim Meyer, Sirius’s President of Operations and Sales, said during a conference call last week. “There will be a noticeable hit to subscribers in the second quarter, as a result of these production halts.”

A noticeable hit. What does that mean? Sirius didn’t say at the time, but a filing the company made with the SEC today gives us a clearer picture–and it’s not a pretty one. Chrysler sent quite a bit of new business Sirius’s way. From the Risk Factors item in the company’s 10-Q filing:

We do not expect to generate a significant number of new subscribers from Chrysler while its plants are closed. During the year ended December 31, 2008, Chrysler produced approximately 900,000 vehicles which included a satellite radio and a prepaid subscription to our service. These subscribers represented approximately 16% of our gross subscriber additions in 2008.”

 
Now, there’s no telling how long the Chrysler factory shutdown will last, so it’s impossible to know how much of an impact it will have on Sirius. That said, if the company’s bankruptcy proceedings drag on for any length of time, it obviously does not bode well for Sirius, especially since XM is potentially facing a similar scenario with General Motors (GM). Again, from the Sirius 10-Q:

There is also significant uncertainty surrounding General Motors’ future and potential filing for bankruptcy protection. A bankruptcy filing by General Motors could have similar effects on our subsidiary, XM.

And that would be grim news indeed. Because while Sirius has stopped counting on its auto partnerships to drive sales, it hasn’t yet established other means of driving subscriptions.