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Transportation Businesses

EV Maker Fisker Files for Bankruptcy (yahoo.com) 54

Posted by msmash from the end-of-road dept.
Fisker filed for bankruptcy on Monday, months after the electric-vehicle startup stopped production of its only model, the oft-malfunctioning Ocean SUV. From a report: Fisker is the second plug-in car company started by Henrik Fisker -- a famed designer of BMW and Aston Martin sports cars -- to end up in bankruptcy. An earlier venture, Fisker Automotive, filed for Chapter 11 protection in 2013 after a series of recalls spelled the downfall of its battery supplier, a fellow recipient of US Energy Department loans. The undoing of Fisker was more self-inflicted. The startup went public in 2020 as part of the wave of EV companies to benefit from the pandemic era boom in special purpose acquisition companies.

Combining with a SPAC sponsored by Apollo Global Management Inc. left Fisker with roughly $1 billion in cash and helped the company land a deal with a Magna International subsidiary that manufactures vehicles for the likes of Toyota, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. While Fisker Ocean sport utility vehicle production started on schedule in November 2022, the first SUVs lacked basic features including cruise control. The California-based company told customers it would deploy capabilities it had promised them the following year, via over-the-air software updates. Software bugs ended up slowing production for months, leading Fisker to repeatedly slash its forecasts. In February of this year, influential YouTuber Marques Brownlee produced a video -- This is the Worst Car I've Ever Reviewed -- that summarizes a series of issues he experienced while borrowing an Ocean from a New Jersey dealership.
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EV Maker Fisker Files for Bankruptcy More

EV Maker Fisker Files for Bankruptcy

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  • how many times is it now lol ... like 4th or 5th time?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      It's like the Sears of EV's, took several repeat bankruptcies to finally kill it for good.

      • Re:what? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2024 @11:53AM (#64558285) Homepage Journal

        It's like the Sears of EV's, took several repeat bankruptcies to finally kill it for good.

        What chance did they stand, when even established automakers have having troubles selling EVs to the current US market which has already saturated the early adopters and 'green' folks....leaving the general public who isn't all that interested in them presently.

        You see Ford and others pulling back on EV manufacture numbers due to EV cars piling up on dealership lots, etc.

        How's a "new guy" going to penetrate a market that has over the past couple years...grown colder.

        • The fossil fuel industry gets a lot of subsidies, which favors ICEs.

          The subsidies on EVs have gone down dramatically since the IRA was enacted.

          Restrictions on battery sourcing, income, and others make the tax credit far more elusive than before. I believe this is a major factor in the growth of EVs slowing down. But their market share is still growing nevertheless

          • Can you please explain which ICE subsidies you are talking about and how that compares to the amount of subsidies for green energy and EV.

            • Read it again. I wrote fossil fuel industry subsidies, not ICE subsidies.
              You can easily research that yourself. The fossil fuels get subsidized at 10x the dollar amount that EVs do.
              Have you ever wondered why gas is so much more expensive in European countries ? It's because they are not subsidized the way they are here.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hawk ( 1151 )

        >It's like the Sears of EV's,

        more like Amiga . . .

        !

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbialac ( 320955 )
      I mostly liked the concept behind the Karma. It was a great looking car. It was a hybrid done properly: it had batteries for shorter drives and a small ICE to recharge the batters when needed, not a clunky motor/engine combination. Everything ran off of the electric motor.
    • Bankruptcy doesn't mean going out of business. It just means debtors may not be fully paid. Whoever they borrowed money from will always try to sell the business if they can.You can have 1000 bankruptcies but typically each time the ownership of the business will change - unless no one wants to buy it. There are also multiple types of bankruptcies but I won't get into that.

      • In this case they filed chapter 11 which means they hope to continue existing in some manner.
        Had they filed chapter 7 instead it'd be over.

        Stupid article didn't say which; I had to go find a real article to find out.

        • In this case they filed chapter 11 which means they hope to continue existing in some manner.

          90% of the time, chapter 11 ends with the company going out of business anyway. It's like turning on the bilge pumps on the Titanic.

      • This time's a bit different.

        1.) They can't find a VC firm dumb enough to give them money
        2.) They can't make enough product that actually works well enough to sell
        3.) Most importantly they can't find an idiot to buy them outside of early adopters who's already been burned.

    • I can't think of or search up any car currently sold in the US without cruise control.

    • Its been standard equipment in all but the most poverty spec cars for a decade if not 2.

      • Its been standard equipment in all but the most poverty spec cars for a decade if not 2.

        Maybe outside of the USA, but in the USA even the least expensive cars include cruise control and power windows/door locks. We really don't actually have any truly cheap new cars here anymore, which is why it kind of sucks that the government decided to slap Chinese EVs with a 100% tariff to prevent that situation from actually ever improving.

        A "poverty spec" new vehicle now means things like e-bikes and e-scooters, which I guess isn't too bad until you're stuck commuting to work in a rain or snow storm.

      • Its been standard equipment in all but the most poverty spec cars for a decade if not 2.

        Sounds about right. I'm a Canadian ex-pat living in the USA, with family still in Canada. Up to the early 2000s, when I booked a rental car for visits I'd always ask whether the car had cruise control. I don't need to bother anymore.

  • Actually saw one IRL (Score:3)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2024 @10:04AM (#64557945)

    Had to take a picture because I didn’t recognize the design. Then later I read about this happening to an unfortunate owner. https://jalopnik.com/fisker-oc... [jalopnik.com]

    • well, gee. Usually you can purchase the vehicle back from the insurer for a fraction of what they paid you for it, so, had it been me, that is exactly what I would have done, then I would have bodged a fix that made it work again and been maybe $30K richer. Hell, did exactly that back in the day, they totaled my mint 1974 Malibu Classic and gave me $1500, I bought the car back from them for $200, then turned it into an oval track car raced that sucker for years. If it wasn't that one of my buddies just coul
      • Since the article talked about the insurer being unable to get a title from Fisker, maybe this was a lease situation, in which case holding on to the vehicle may not have been an option. Probably smarter to have ditched it anyway, given the company died off. It would take some pretty high-end electronic, engineering, and mechanical skill to keep an EV made by a defunct company with zero parts availability on the road.
        • oh, but, uh, usually the EV fans out there will tell you that they need no maintenance... or at least less maintenance than an ICE... and my current ICE needed (over the last 140,000+ miles) a bunch of oil changes. two rotors and brake pads replaced , so if the EV fans are being honest, and an ev needs less than that... well. You have nothing to worry about.
  • Maybe he figured that his first foray as a manufacturer was cut short by the Great Recession, but maybe he needed to realize he was better at designing and not mass producing. I look at his Fisker Karma (from his first run at this) and it's really attractive/sexy car.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by JustNiz ( 692889 )

      I totally agree. I was wishing Fisker all the luck, as I do any small manufacturer that dares to do something cooler that the big boys, but signing off on the Ocean when it's clearly not ready and the quality is so bad was beyond inexcusable.

    • Agree. Extreme competence in one area does not necessarily translate to other areas. More EV startups will come, almost all will fail, but some will succeed.

  • Fisker is the second plug-in car company started by Henrik Fisker

    So was this the second Fisker company to make plug-in cars? Or was it the second Fisker plug-in company to make cars? I'm guessing the latter, since this is also the second Fisker company to have the plug pulled on it.

    Sorry, I couldn't resist.

  • The problem is that a lot of car companies are trying to sell a computer system on wheels. The only thing different here is that this company not only got bit by their bad choices but got bit hard enough to kill it. I hope more computer car companies suffer the same fate.

  • If the name is Fisker avoid they will go bust making any warranties void, and spare parts impossible

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