Earlier today, Fisker finally did what seemed inevitable over the past turbulent months: declared bankruptcy.
“Like other companies in the electric vehicle industry, we have faced several market and macroeconomic headwinds that have impacted our ability to operate efficiently,” the company said in a statement. “After evaluating all options for our company, we have determined that proceeding with the sale of our assets under Chapter 11 is the most viable path forward for the company.”
To anyone paying close attention, this isn’t all that surprising. Fisker has been warning about the dwindling cash supply for months. It has done everything you should do to keep costs in check. It laid off more than 15 percent of its workforce, cut prices and began looking for an investor who could potentially save the struggling EV company — but without success.
“We have faced several market and macroeconomic headwinds that have impacted our ability to operate efficiently”
In some ways, Fisker’s bankruptcy is a product of this particular moment when EV sales growth has slowed, and companies that have bet everything on pure battery-electric vehicles are in a cash crunch.
But in another light, Fisker is an example of a company that tried to stick to the Tesla playbook but still failed to replicate Elon Musk’s success. Henrik Fisker, who made his name as a designer for BMW before starting his own car company, certainly had more professional bona fides than Musk did when he first took over Tesla. But Fisker lacked Musk’s showmanship, his ability to inspire people and – most importantly – his ability to talk his way out of tough situations.
It’s not for 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 2018, Henrik claimed to have solved one of the ‘holy grails’ of EV production with the creation of a true solid-state battery. (These are batteries that do not use liquid electrolytes to move energy. Instead, the cells are made of solid and ‘dry’ conductive material.)
Fisker said his company was just a few months away from a final solid-state battery design. But it was clear almost immediately that the company would not be able to deliver on its promise. In early 2019, the startup postponed a planned sports car based on the solid-state technology and pivoted to the Ocean SUV, which uses a more common lithium-ion battery. Two years later, Fisker completely abandoned his plan to develop a solid-state battery.
“It’s the kind of technology where if you feel like you’re 90 percent there, you’re almost there, until you realize that the last 10 percent is much harder than the first 90,” Fisker told former Edge reporter Sean O’Kane (who covered most of the company stories here The edge and has now continued that streak TechCrunch) in 2021.
But if Fisker was chastened by his failed attempt at a battery breakthrough, he didn’t show it. Months after admitting defeat, he announced another fantastic project: an electric Popemobile made by his company. The CEO claimed to have had a “private audience” with Pope Francis and that his company would create a custom electric SUV in late 2022 that would be used for official papal transportation.
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 just over a minute, and the Holy Father gave no indication of his approval.
The CEO claimed to have had a “private audience” with Pope Francis
There have been other half-baked ideas, including a manufacturing partnership with Volkswagen and a deal with iPhone maker Foxconn, but neither has materialized. And when Fisker finally started actually making cars, the first (and probably only) of which was the Ocean SUV, more problems seemed to crop up every week. There have been a host of software and mechanical issues, as well as internal issues surrounding its non-existent customer service department and its inability to keep track of how much money it was making. YouTuber Marques Brownlee gave The Ocean one of his worst reviews ever.
All the while, Fisker stuck with the Tesla model in the hope that it could repeat its success. The company tried to sell its cars directly to consumers, as Tesla does, eschewing the franchised dealer model used by most legacy automakers, but then had to backtrack after discovering costs exceeded expectations.
But Henrik could never hold people’s attention the way Musk does. And according to TechCrunch, he had a very different idea of what a ‘cool’ design was. For Musk, it was minimalist design and a preponderance of extraneous software features like video games, misnamed driver assists, and sophomoric sound effects. For Henrik Fisker, it was tacky things like wheel spacers that ultimately messed up the installation process.
This is bankruptcy number two for Henrik Fisker. His first startup, Fisker Automotive, failed in 2013 due to many of the same problems: quality issues and financial mismanagement. Now, with two bankruptcies under its belt, it might be time to admit that the Tesla playbook isn’t exactly foolproof, especially if your name isn’t Elon Musk.