MONROE, La. — A startup automobile company plans to assemble a new fuel-efficient car in Louisiana, employing an estimated 1,400 people once production starts, state and company officials announced today.

San Diego-based V-Vehicle will take over a vacant plant in Monroe, Gov. Bobby Jindal said at a news conference.

The state put up an incentive package of $67 million to fund improvements and expansion of the plant, while Monroe-area local governments put up another $15 million.

Former Oracle executive Frank Varasano, who founded VVC in 2006, said the company has applied for $340 million in loans from the federal government. The loans would come from a $25 billion pool of money approved by Congress in 2007 to spur automotive technology.

VVC vice president Horst Metz said the investors were proceeding with the plan, but the loans "are very important. If we don't get them, we have to get the money somewhere else."

Metz said production would begin in about 18 months. Company and state officials said the plant would employ 1,400 people and would create hundreds more jobs nearby.

Besides Varasano, investors in the project include the venture capital fund of Kleiner, Perkins Caufield & Byers, energy investor T. Boone Pickens, who has been pushing for increased use of wind-generated and other alternative power, and Louisiana trucking magnate James Davison, who bought the vacant plant in 2007.

By The Associated Press