The departure of Henrik Fisker from Fisker Automotive

That is too bad. Any news of Electric failing is just sad

When the money runs out, the CEO runs off. It has nothing to do with the company making electric cars.

This makes me sad. I would like to see more competition in electric cars.

Looks like Fisker is going Bankrupt/ filing bankruptcy. Rightly so.

It seems the travelling circus known as the Hollywood elite/Politicos do more harm than good for the EV cause. Their tour is powered by sanctimony and jet fuel, not solar power, and alienates a good portion of the population. When they fail their critics are filled with glee. It has nothing to do with the viability or lack thereof of electric vehicles and just polarizes and categorizes people. Logic goes out the window and emotion, bigotry and defensiveness flies in.

Let's all try to think objectively and put emotion aside in making decisions about whether EVs work or not and under what circumstances. Let's think mathematically about what the most effective spending of our dollars is for our individual situations. Is it solar panels and heat pumps instead of an EV? Maybe insulation or telecommuting? Carpooling? Adopting instead of procreating? All of the above?

Think objectively.

The fight for energy independence and clean air and water is economic as well as environmental and there will be a combination of solutions, of which E.V.s will only play a part.

Very sad. Henrik Fisker worked hard, and put a lot of his own money into Fisker Automotive.

Almost from the beginning the project was dogged by bad luck. Fisker had to overcome a number of problems with suppliers, but mostly just sheer bad luck.

The Fisker Karma was very well received by it's target audience, whose loyally continued to support the fledgling car maker despite the misfortunes, and uneven quality control.

Fisker Automotive ran into a storm of hatred from both US right-wing crazies, (because of it's government loans), and leftist EV purists who hated it's EVER capacity, and the sort of people who bought the Karma.

Henrik Fisker came to the realisation that the 'Nina' or Atlantic model, was a bridge too far. In Henrik Fisker's opinion, the company was better downsizing and concentrating on perfecting and developing the export potential of the Karma (and Sunset convertible). The other directors,investors, and consultant disagreed and decided to press ahead with plans for a new model to become a volume auto-manufacturer, utilising the old Delaware plant.

The other directors felt that they could persuade a PRC auto-manufacturer to invest sufficient money and take a majority equity position that would allow existing investors to sell out without a loss. With Henrik gone, the investors felt the biggest obstacle to their plans had been removed. It must have come a shock to the remaining board members to discover that all 'White Knights', regarded Henrick Fisker as the companies main asset !

No Henrik, no deal !

Fisker Automotive still has considerable cash on hand, but has lost direction and to failure to find a purchaser, will see the marque disappear.

It's a great shame, and no-one who is genuinely interested in EV progress, should be rejoicing at Fisker's demise .

That is a good question on the whereabouts of the money.

They may be trying to preserve it to make the company more attractive to potential buyers.

It should be noted that almost all start-up car companies are not successfull, irrespective of whether they are EV or ICE.

I would agree with the idea of concentrating on the current model and slowly building the brand. It seems the mistake of growing too fast is the thing that brings down these companies.

I'm curious where the money has gone?

Well, there might not be all that much left! Fisker Automotive employed over three hundred employees in the US. Henrik Fisker has indicated that 53% of Fisker's capital was used for the still born Nina/Atlantic project.

Fisker's total capital raised, (including loan guarantees), was slightly less than $ 900 million. This is a relatively small amount of capital for such an ambitious project. (about the same as Vectrix !).

The loss of 300 units to Hurricane Sandy, and a disputed insurance claim, along with the recent settlement of the $140 million claim against bankrupt battery maker A 123, for a mere $15 million, are pretty substantial losses.

Vehicle manufacture is a very capital intensive, low profit industry. Most automotive OEM's survive on some form of Government industry assistance.

Elon Musk has done a brilliant job with Tesla. In comparison, Tesla is capitalised at $5.6 billion, with credit line of more than $2 billion additional funding. Elon Musk has proved to be a astonishingly accomplished administrator, taught himself to be an industrialist, and capitalist.

Fisker, suffered from not only bad luck, but pursued a wasteful policy of expansion far beyond it's resources. How much of this was Henrik Fisker's fault can only be speculated, but it seems that he was badly advised, and pressured by the Fisker board of directors to pursue the folly of Delaware, far too long.

There was a lot of turmoil at Fisker Automotive over the last year or so. The company appears to be on its last legs largely because they haven't been able to build cars for months because A123 Systems went bankrupt. Reportedly Henrik resigned in the middle of a major argument between the management team on what to do moving forward.

Fisker Automotive still has about $30 million on hand, but with potential 'white knight' it's directors are preparing to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

One aspect of a formal application, will be much of the companies financial history will become available for public scrutiny.

@ reikiman

" meant to damage the negotiations "

With whom ?!