#fisker

On Friday, Fisker fired most of its rank-and-file employees, 160 out of a total 210, and promptly got into hot water for doing so. The law firm Outten & Golden filed a class-action lawsuit for not giving employees a 60-day notice under California’s WARN act.

While Damon Lavrinc at Wired’s Autopia makes the observation that the revived Detroit Electric company seems to be following the Tesla playbook, launching their company with a car based on an electrified small Lotus, Detroit Electric CEO Albert Lam insists that his team is using a different business model than Tesla and that they have learned from other EV startups’ mistakes. Lam also said there was no comparison between Detroit Electric and Fisker, which appears to be headed to bankruptcy soon, having just furloughed all but 50 employees. Detroit Electric says they are following the model of Apple (on Lam’s CV along with a stints at Lotus and Sun Microsystems) focusing on design and engineering with much of everything else contracted out. Lam pointed out, at a press conference following the reveal of the SP:01 sports car, that buying and equipping a factory to build an original platform, as Tesla is doing, or even contracting out assembly of an original platform, as Fisker has tried to do, both require up front investments of hundreds of millions, perhaps a billion dollars or more, requiring quick success and substantial early sales just to break even.

Fisker did put its entire workforce, all 200 of them, on furlough, “while it continues to search for a strategic partner,” Reuters says. That search is not going so well. And quite possibly, the workforce will never come back.

When Henrik Fisker left last week, all we knew was that he “disagreed on business strategy” with the management, code for “board-room brawl, founder leaves in a huff.” Now we know where the disagreement was. It was whether to ask Uncle Sam or Auntie Zhang for money.

Fisker is still likely to be rescued by a Chinese savior, but it won’t be Geely. Reuters is reporting that Fisker’s outstanding obligations to the Department of Energy have scared off the Chinese auto maker, leaving Dongfeng as the sole suitor for the beleagured EV maker.

Henrik Fisker has resigned from the automobile firm that bears his name, as the company’s future looks to be headed towards an inexorable buyout by a Chinese auto maker.

Not Dongfeng, but China’s Geely currently looks best positioned to profit from U.S. government largesse by buying beleaguered and DOE- funded plug-in car maker Fisker, Reuters reports. According to the report, “Zhejiang Geely Holding Group is favored to secure a majority stake in troubled U.S. electric car maker Fisker Automotive, according to two sources familiar with Fisker’s search for a strategic investor or partner.”

Also according to the report, red flags are sure to flutter over Fisker’s HQ in Anaheim, as Fisker “is currently weighing bids from two Chinese auto makers: Geely, the owner of Sweden’s Volvo, and state-owned Dongfeng Motor Group Co.”

Reports by Bloomberg suggest that Fisker could sell up to an 85 percent stake to Chinese automaker Dongfeng. The automaker apparently bid $350 million for the beleaguered plug-in car maker, according to sources close to the company.

It isn’t often one of the biggest news items coming out of NAIAS 2013 is from a tuning house … especially a tuning house nobody has ever heard of before. Attach the name Bob Lutz to a car, along with a brand new, fire breathing, tire shredding 6.2L LT1 V8 from the new Corvette, you are bound to turn some heads. Oh, and they wedged it into a Fisker Karma.

That’s Maximum to the Bob.

Wanxiang Group, China’s largest maker of auto parts won the auction for A123 Systems, Reuters says. The maker of batteries for electric cars was funded partly with U.S. government money, but went bankrupt nonetheless.

Fisker put production of its Karma plug-in hybrid on hold. Reason: It is running out of batteries. Bankrupt battery manufacturer A123 Systems has cut its output.

Fisker wanted to sell its $100,000-plus Karma plug-in hybrid in China by the end of this year. It’s not happening. Fisker “encountered a slight delay in obtaining final certification to sell cars in China” spokesman Roger Ormisher told Reuters. The company now targets “the first quarter of next year to take advantage of China’s rapidly growing market for luxury cars.” Good luck with that.

More than 300 Karma plug-in hybrids fell victim to super storm Sandy, Fisker spokesman Roger Ormisher told Reuters. The cars sat in a storage lot in Port Newark, New Jersey, which was inundated by Sandy. Among the lost Karmas are 16 that went up in flames. One car caught fire when seawater caused a short circuit. Winds spread the fire to 15 other cars.

While Johnson Controls and China’s Wanxiang Group have competing bids to acquire the assets of advanced battery maker and Fisker supplier A123, a more serious battle is occurring in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware between the startup automaker and what is arguably its most important vendor. A123 wants the bankruptcy judge to void its contracts including those for supplying batteries to Fisker. That could stop production of Fisker’s only car, the Karma.