The Fate of the Fisker Automotive Model: 10 Years after the Filippon Insuccessful Bankruptcy
Fisker has a checkered history beyond the Ocean. The car’s eponymous owner, previously of BMW, Ford, and Aston Martin, gave the last car in his name 10 years ago. The sports GT had problems like a disastrous Consumer Reports test and fires. Fisker Automotive filed for bankruptcy in 2013.
But he couldn’t hold on to people’s attention like Musk does. He had a different idea about what constituted a cool design. For Musk, it was a minimalist design and a preponderance for extraneous software features, like video games, misnomered driver assist, and sophomoric sound effects. For Henrik Fisker, it was ticky-tacky stuff like wheel spacers, which just ended up mucking up the assembly process.
Fisker has been affected by the decline in EV sales in the US. The company lost a degree of quality control when it ceded manufacturing to Canada-based supplier Magna, and build and software issues of its Ocean SUV subsequently surfaced. Since launch, the model has been dogged by quality problems, with owners citing sudden power losses, glitchy key fobs and sensors, and even allegations of hoods flying open.
The Beginnings of an Electric Popemobile: Henrik Fisker at the Ocean and Through the Looking Glass: Towards a Real Solid-State Battery
What he didn’t say was that much of his story was completely embellished. Henrik had “presented” the idea of an electric Popemobile to Pope Francis as part of a meet and greet that lasted a little over a minute, and the Holy Father gave no indication of his approval.
Fisker was talking to a former reporter, who said that the type of technology he was talking about was more difficult than the first 90.
It is not because of the lack of trying. In the early days of Fisker, Henrik proved to be very good at making wild-sounding promises that helped generate a lot of excitement and buzz about his company. In regards to electric vehicles, we had one of the holy grails solved with a real solid-state battery. These batteries don’t use liquid electrolytes to move the energy around. The cells are composed of solid and dry material.
The company said in a statement that it had faced market and macroeconomics that had impacted its ability to operate efficiently. After considering all of the options for our business, we decided that selling our assets under Chapter 11 was the most viable way to move forward.
Such negotiations, reportedly with Nissan, failed to conclude positively, an outcome signaled at the time by Fisker itself as it issued a statement saying “any transaction would be subject to satisfaction of important conditions, including completion of due diligence and negotiation and execution of appropriate definitive agreements.” $350 million of funding was lost after the collapse of these talks.
Fisker has assets of between $500 million and $1 billion and aolvency of $100 million to $500 million, as well as 20 of its largest creditor companies, such as Adobe, Google, andSAP.
The Ocean’s myriad issues embarrassingly caught out Fisker staff, too, with board member Wendy Greuel losing power on a public road shortly after receiving the EV. According to internal documents, the company’s CFO and COO, Geeta Gupta Fisker, also experienced a power shutdown while driving the Ocean.
Having initially chosen to operate a direct-to-consumer sales model, Fisker reverted to a traditional dealership sales model in January after handing over to customers less than half of the more than 10,000 vehicles it produced last year. The company slashed prices on its Ocean models in a desperate attempt to shift inventory.