Fisker Files For Chap 11 Bankruptcy Today

AbleGuy

Officious Intermeddler

These guys once promoted an EV truck badged the Alaska. It seems it and the rest of the company never really got off the ground.

Their stock is down something like 98% overall, and down about 55% today, making it truly a penny stock. Interestingly tho, their debt to asset ratio isn’t that bad🤔

IMG_4068.jpeg

The larger Q is, what’s this mean for the rest of the EV industry? Ford seems unable to even give away their Lightnings. But i have been seeing quite a few Rivian trucks on the left coast.
 
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driveby

Active member
I wouldn't expect much traffic here for Fisker. It's a mall hauler not a "real" truck. Similar to a Explorer/Atlas etc in use case. Having said that capital (or more correctly servicing that capital) has got a lot harder to get and keep in the last year. Lots of companies that relied on cheap capital will have trouble.

On the EV front it's interesting to hear folks like Toyota talk about EV vs ICE. It's only G7 urban places that can really support EV at this point. Rural or non G7 simply don't have the infrastructure yet to really make EV viable. EG I'll drive an EV as my daily but I'd not even consider an EV for an expedition class use case. Not that I don't think they'd make a good platform, but simply there isn't enough infra and vehicle range to be successful. IE how many EV stations are there on the Dempster or deep in Moab yet? They'll get there just not for a while.
 

JaSAn

Grumpy Old Man
One of the reasons (among many) that I would not consider buying an EV now is the volatility in the market. Looking at early 1900s there were over 100 companies making cars; most didn't last long.

. . . IE how many EV stations are there on the Dempster or deep in Moab yet? They'll get there just not for a while.
Is it still off-roading/overlanding if there are convenient fuel stations along the route?
Do we really want to tear up the wild places to put in above or below ground power transmission lines?
 

driveby

Active member
100% agreed on adding power lines, what I think needs to happen is better range which needs different battery chemistries. We talk about large fuel tanks to get longer range. Same needs to happen for batteries. IE ~400 mile range is fine but that's ideal super clean range. Not some 5MPH nasty washboard road. Jeep and Rivian are doing some interesting things with chargers near popular locations to start to solve for that. And eventually that Chevron station will have fast chargers in that small town on the way to the arctic (or Moab) like they have gas and diesel today. It's coming and will be successful but folks like Fisker can't wait that long. Ford can. So yeah they over charge (sorry for the pun) for the Lightning and now are coming back to reality a bit but they can suck it up for a couple years.
 

Jeremy P.

Adventurer
Those fiskers will probably be collectible in a few years!

A fast charging station is supposed to open in Moab this month (besides the two tesla locations already there). I don't see the need for running new transmission lines to remote areas just for charging, but it may just mean compromising on charging speed in some areas. Even gas stations need electricity to operate, right? :)
 

ABBB

Well-known member
I’m sure as solar cell tech advances (along with battery tech), remote charging stations will pop up more, especially if they don’t need to be connected to a grid. It Hornsdale, AUS can run off a football field-sized Tesla battery, I’m sure a small bank of chargers can be sustained off something smaller.

Too bad about Fisker - although bankruptcy doesn’t always mean a company is kaput - I like their design and I’ve watched a few favorable reviews. Lucid seems to be taking off more. The amount of Rivians I’m seeing along the I5 corridor between PDX and the bay area has grown extraordinarily. I mean just exploded in the last few months. They’re doing something right.
 

plh

Explorer
I read an article last week in Automotive News, the EV statistics aren't great. Polling current EV owners 50% will buy an ICE as their next vehicle - stating charging time / convenience / infrastructure as the biggest deterrent to a repeat EV purchase. 23% of current ICE owners would never consider an EV. EVs as sales percentage of new vehicles in the past year was around 7%. Probably topped out the early adopter crowd. Cool niche - but wont mainstream catch on until the charging dilemma can be on par with ICE refueling.
 
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ABBB

Well-known member
I read an article last week in Automotive News, the EV statistics aren't great. Polling current EV owners 50% will buy an ICE as their next vehicle - stating charging time / convenience / infrastructure as the biggest deterrent to a repeat EV purchase. 23% of current ICE owners would never consider an EV. EVs as sales percentage of new vehicles in the past year was around 7%. Probably topped out the early adopter crowd. Cool niche - but wont mainstream catch on until the charging dilemma can be on par with ICE refueling.
Those sorts of polls are only so helpful. If the dynamic on the ground were different, the data the poll collected would be different. The dynamics are shifting every day - charging infrastructure, financing, tech, range, and on and on. One more charging station on Family X’s vacation route or another 75 miles of range and they feel, assess and answer that poll totally differently.

The other issue no one is talking about here is China. The electrified vehicle arms race is well under way already. If we don’t want the whole world flooded with cheap, autocratically-funded Chinese electric vehicles, the same way the world is flooded with other cheap Chinese manufacturing that undermines American industry and our global influence, we’d better have an industry that at least competes if not outduels its Chinese counterpart.
 

plh

Explorer
Automotive News isn't your basic story rag.

Yeah, China gets infrastructure stuff done. I lived there during the old train to high speed train conversion - just think about plumbing the country a bit bigger than the USA in 4 years with an entirely new rail system.
 

plainjaneFJC

Deplorable

These guys once promoted an EV truck badged the Alaska. It seems it and the rest of the company never really got off the ground.

Their stock is down something like 98% overall, and down about 55% today, making it truly a penny stock. Interestingly tho, their debt to asset ratio isn’t that bad🤔

View attachment 839930

The larger Q is, what’s this mean for the rest of the EV industry? Ford seems unable to even give away their Lightnings. But i have been seeing quite a few Rivian trucks on the left coast.
I’ve seen 3 or 4 if the R1T trucks in central Colorado this week, none of them dirty though. Seems they like brewery parking lots.
 

lucilius

Active member
No big deal: Earthroamer went into Chapter 7 liquidation bankruptcy in 2009 and then reemerged like Houdini after some quick restructuring. The only minor issue was that owners up to that time lost their Earthroamer warranty, beyond that, they started up like nothing ever happened and have been successful ever since.
Where there's a market, there's a way ahead. Fisker, or at the very least just some of its IP if it's novel enough, will probably reemerge if & when EV's become the norm or American drivers en masse start really wanting EV's because they believe they're just better than the ICE alternatives. One perspective is that EV's are the future, the clear choice of the enlightened, they are clean and will help save the environment from human-caused warming/cooling/extreme/etc. weather and climate. No one likes pollution and breathing exhaust. I don't think anyone likes having a giant lithium/rare earth mine next door either, but quite easy to forget about if it's in Africa being run by the Chinese government. Another side says EV's aren't really that clean and, despite a lot of talk and optimism about solar and wind (backed up by massive buildings full of batteries for those times when mother nature isn't being generous) potential, neither are any of the existing large-scale sources of electricity, so EV's environmental claims are something of a shell game and folks should stick with ICE and deal with the known evils of burnt petroleum exhaust. There are many more perspectives and factors of course, like getting rid of hydroelectric power to save salmon, nuclear power 2.0, EV range-longevity-resale ?'s trifecta, etc. History alone will show if the best course was taken. FWIW if I was a large corporation or government taking the long-term/strategic view, I'd probably let the market decide a good bit of this and not go too far down the path of forcing EV's and EV-specific infrastructure. I definitely wouldn't want to be looking at my shareholders or constituency (unless of course it's a Zoom meeting and I have the Florida beach background and no one really knows where...or whether...I really exist) explaining why I was using their money to put charging stations (or gas stations for that matter) in austere, often pristine locations in order to support small groups of recreational motorists leaving tire tracks, fire pits and the odd beer can in the wilds. But I've got no problem if someone has the money and wherewithal to add a few Tesla chargers at a Dalton Hwy gas station so an intrepid EV driver can make it up to Deadhorse to ogle the oilfields, probably not see a polar bear/caribou herd, and then drop a packraft into the Sagavanirktok for a quick paddle. On some level we all consider whether we are "murdering the impossible" and destroying every sense of adventure when we stick more people, more kit and more infrastructure in our finite hinterland. For some this is when you can see another tent or other bright piece of petroleum-based fabric on the icy ridge of a neighboring peak, for others this is when you pull up to the RV park in your custom Sprinter and the campsite is packed with Prevost/etc. giants and the swimming pool is full of screaming kids...there is some magic in the wide uncrowded empty spaces and a little used two-track winding through it.
The solution for transportation / vehicles is human genius, ingenuity and work ethic. ICE quickly displaced the horse and no doubt some inventor(s) at some point, hopefully soon, will come up with something better than EV (or petroleum ICE). Until then maybe most prudent to prioritize the sort of things that allow for more genius and ingenuity: peace/national security, rule of law, freedom, wealth, high educational standards and PLENTY of cheap energy (USA not really thriving in some of these areas, but maybe look at who is and how they're doing it) to enable all of those things so those inventors can keep inventing. (Then again, some folks will say some of the very best inventions emerge during times of suffering, crisis, war, etc. but maybe these are the types of folks who like to sit around worrying). If EV works for you, great. If it works for the masses and the numbers make financial sense, Fisker'll be back. Hopefully they'll honor warranties on the vehicles they've sold.
 

plainjaneFJC

Deplorable
It’s actually a big deal, fisker is a car company not a specialized rv maker. The EV companies are bleeding, I don’t see a path forward for fisker, just not enough interest.
 

lucilius

Active member
Fisker, the person, has designed some great looking cars. He is one of those entrepreneurs who seems to have 9 lives. His companies over the years struggle and run out of gas when the investor largesse is expended and art & design slams into reality. These are tough times for EV (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/jun/22/46-of-us-electric-car-owners-want-to-switch-back-t/). EV's (given current technology) will probably make the most sense in countries with plenty of cheap energy and nationwide infrastructure improvements, both of which can happen in a well-run country with a strong economy.
 

plainjaneFJC

Deplorable
Fisker, the person, has designed some great looking cars. He is one of those entrepreneurs who seems to have 9 lives. His companies over the years struggle and run out of gas when the investor largesse is expended and art & design slams into reality. These are tough times for EV (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/jun/22/46-of-us-electric-car-owners-want-to-switch-back-t/). EV's (given current technology) will probably make the most sense in countries with plenty of cheap energy and nationwide infrastructure improvements, both of which can happen in a well-run country with a strong economy.
The irony of cheap energy means you have a bunch of coal powered cars running around…..😆 it’s good for the environment because it’s electric….. it’s like the folks that say “who needs farms, my food comes from the grocery store”….😆
 

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