Fisker Inc filed for bankruptcy on Monday, months after the electric vehicle (EV) start-up stopped production of its only model, the oft-malfunctioning Ocean sport utility vehicle (SUV).
The company listed between US$500 million and US$1 billion of assets, and between US$100 million and US$500 million of liabilities, in its petition filed in Delaware. The filing protects Fisker from creditors while it works out a plan to repay them.
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.
Photo: AP
The undoing of Fisker Inc was more self-inflicted. The start-up went public in 2020 as part of the wave of EV companies to benefit from the pandemic era boom in special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Combining with a SPAC sponsored by Apollo Global Management Inc left Fisker with roughly US$1 billion in cash and helped the company land a deal with a Magna International Inc subsidiary that manufactures vehicles for the likes of Toyota Motor Corp, BMW AG and Mercedes-Benz AG.
While Fisker Ocean SUV 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. The video has racked up more than 5.7 million views.
Fisker produced 10,193 Oceans last year but delivered only 4,929 vehicles to customers. The company attempted a dramatic pivot in early January, seeking out partnerships with franchised dealers in North America in a move away from selling SUVs directly to consumers.
By February, Fisker warned there was substantial doubt about its ability to continue operating. The following month, the company announced it had secured US$150 million from an existing lender, though the financing was contingent on Fisker securing investment from an unidentified automaker. A week after that disclosure, Fisker said that talks with the carmaker had ended without a deal.
Magna executives said during an earnings call last month that the company’s updated outlook for this year assumed no further production of Ocean SUVs. While the company laid off 400 to 500 people from its facility in Graz, Austria, the plant employs around 7,000 workers and continues to manufacture vehicles for BMW, Mercedes, Toyota and Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC.
Fisker’s bankruptcy comes as EV makers struggle to adapt to slowing sales in the US and across much of Europe.
The company follows a handful of other EV start-ups into bankruptcy, including Charge Enterprises Inc, the installer of EV charging stations that filed for Chapter 11 protection in March. Other EV makers that have filed for bankruptcy include Lordstown Motors Corp, Proterra Inc and Electric Last Mile Solutions Inc.
STRONG INTEREST: Analysts have pointed to optimism in TSMC’s growth prospects in the artificial intelligence era as the cause of the rising number of shareholders The number of people holding shares of chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) hit a new high last week despite a decline in its stock price, the Taiwan Depository and Clearing Corp (TDCC, 台灣集保) said. The number of TSMC shareholders rose to 2.46 million as of Friday, up 75,536 from a week earlier, TDCC data showed. The stock price fell 1.34 percent during the same week to close at NT$1,840 (US$57.55). The decline in TSMC’s share price resulted from volatility in global tech stocks, driven by rising international crude oil prices as the war against Iran continues. Dealers said
PRICE HIKES: The war in the Middle East would not significantly disrupt supply in the short term, but semiconductor companies are facing price surges for materials Taiwan’s semiconductor companies are not facing imminent supply disruptions of essential chemicals or raw materials due to the war in the Middle East, but surges in material costs loom large, industry association SEMI Taiwan said yesterday. The association’s comments came amid growing concerns that supplies of helium and other key raw materials used in semiconductor production could become a choke point after Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and helium output earlier this month due to the conflict. Qatar is the second-largest LNG supplier in the world and accounts for about 33 percent of global helium output. Helium is
China is clamping down on fertilizer exports to protect its domestic market, industry sources said, putting an additional strain on global markets that were already grappling with shortages caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran. China is among the largest fertilizer exporters — shipping more than US$13 billion of it last year — and it has a history of controlling exports to keep prices low for farmers. Shipments through the war-blocked Strait of Hormuz account for about one-third of the sea-borne supply. This month, Beijing banned exports of nitrogen-potassium fertilizer blends and certain phosphate varieties, sources said. The ban, which has not
AMAZING ABUNDANCE: Elon Musk has announced plans for a new facility in Texas which would manufacture chips for Tesla and SpaceX to use in robotics and AI Elon Musk said his Terafab project — a grand plan to eventually manufacture his own chips for robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) and space data centers — would be built in Austin and jointly run by Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX). Musk, the chief executive officer of the two companies, said he would start off with an “advanced technology fab” in Austin that would have all of the equipment necessary to make chips of any kind. The project would call for one day supporting 1 terawatt (TW) of computing power per year, the amount Musk expects the companies to
RSS