Want To Know What's Wrong With Fisker? Here Are Two Reports

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Fisker is at its last gasp. After burning through $1.4 billion, “the company is out of cash,” writes Reuters, “for months, key investors have been footing the car maker’s day-to-day expenses to keep it alive in diminished form.” Reuters has an in-depth report on what went wrong at Fisker. Reuters also has the one sentence version:


“Executives simply couldn’t orchestrate the complex dance that leads from a design sketch to the production and sale of a profitable car.”

Read the Reuters in-depth report by their Detroit reporters Deepa Seetharaman and Paul Lienert.

And if you want to know how Fisker even bungled a rescue by China’s Geely, a deal cut by Joel Ewanick, working as a consultant, then Reuters has another report for you. Read how Ewanick already had convinced Geely Chairman Li Shufu to put $250 million into Fisker, which would also have provided Geely with U.S. production for Volvo and Geely as part of the bargain. Read how wires were crossed with another team scouring China for money.

Should you ever think of putting money into a startup carmaker, read these reports first.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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 6 comments
  • DC Bruce DC Bruce on Jun 17, 2013

    The links to the first Reuters story in the article are bad. Here is the working link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/17/us-autos-fisker-specialreport-idUSBRE95G02L20130617

  • West-coaster West-coaster on Jun 17, 2013

    1. I can't seem to read the article, neither via the link in the post, the link provided by DC Bruce, nor a search of "Fisker" on the Reuters site. It'll show me the comments, some ads, but not the article. 2. Is that a correct figure for who much Ewanick had lined up from Geely? I would think it should be more like $250,000,000, as $250,000 would run Fisker for, what, a week?

    • See 1 previous
    • West-coaster West-coaster on Jun 17, 2013

      @DC Bruce Actually, I'd left the page open in another window and went back to it some time later. The text had magically appeared.

  • Lorenzo Lorenzo on Jun 17, 2013

    ...and they'd brought in Detroit "pro" Tom LaSorda to get it done and still couldn't get it done? Wow. Where was Henrik Fisker while this was going on - or was Henrik Fisker part of the problem?

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