Fisker tried to beat Tesla, and now it is bankrupt

The Expansion of Henrik Fisker During his First Test Drive: How an Electric Vehicle Fails to a Papal Lambda

In some respects, Fisker’s bankruptcy is a product of this particular moment, in which EV sales growth has slowed, and companies that have bet everything on pure battery-electric vehicles are finding themselves in a cash crunch.

But Musk is able to hold people’s attention in a way that no other person could. And, according to TechCrunch, he had a much different idea of 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.

The news of Fisker’s bankruptcy may have been a certainty to anyone who knows the Ocean all-electric SUV. WIRED tested the Fisker Ocean in July 2023 but, due to the obviously unfinished nature of the test car, was left in the unprecedented position of being unable to score or rate the EV. The Ocean was plagued with a variety of problems, including an inoperative California mode where the EV drops all its windows and poor handling.

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.

The Ocean of Fisker EVs: An Exploratory Account of the First Three Years and the First Two Years, and Its Impact on the Company

“It’s the kind of technology where, when you feel like you’re 90 percent there, you’re almost there, until you realize the last 10 percent is much more difficult than the first 90,” Fisker told former Verge reporter Sean O’Kane (who broke most of the stories about the company here at The Verge and has continued that streak now at TechCrunch) in 2021.

It’s not for lack of trying. The early days of Fisker had a lot of excitement and buzz because of the promises made byHenrik and his team. The creation of a real solid-state battery has been claimed to have solved one of the holy grails of EV production. (These are batteries that don’t use liquid electrolytes to move energy around. Solid and dry material are what these cells are made of.

“Like other companies in the electric vehicle industry, we have faced various market and macroeconomic headwinds that have impacted our ability to operate efficiently,” the company said in a statement. After considering all of the options for the company’s future, we decided that the sale of our assets under Chapter 11 was the most viable path 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 was lost because of the collapse of these talks.

In the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in Delaware, Fisker has estimated assets of $500 million to $1 billion and liabilities of $100 million to $500 million, and among its 20 largest creditors named Adobe, Google, and SAP.

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. Similarly, according to a cache of internal documents viewed by TechCrunch, Geeta Gupta Fisker—the company’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer, and wife of cofounder Henrik Fisker—also experienced a power shutdown while driving an Ocean.

Fisker decided to switch to a dealership sales model in January after selling less than half of the vehicles it produced last year. Then in March, the company drastically cut prices on its Ocean models in a desperate attempt to shift inventory.