It's been a wild ride for Fisker in the past several months. It all started with the company's failure to submit its quarterly filings, and an announcement back in February that its funds could run dry within the next year. Then, things continued to snowball with reports about the company's failure to cash payments for the Ocean, followed by pauses in production, erratic drops in the EV's starting price, and terrible reviews to further stain the brand's image. To top it all off, stock prices continuously plummeted as the situation unfolded.

Now, Fisker has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy––it's the second EV startup to do so, following the collapse of Lordstown Motors roughly a year ago. The company claims to have assets valued at somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion, along with liabilities within the range of $100 million and $500 million. Court filings also indicate that the company has between 200 and 999 creditors.

"Like other companies in the electric vehicle industry, we have faced various market and macroeconomic headwinds that have impacted our ability to operate efficiently," Fisker said in a statement. "After evaluating all options for our business, we determined that proceeding with a sale of our assets under Chapter 11 is the most viable path forward for the company."

Again, the problems at Fisker have been complex. Aside from the paperwork missteps and bad reviews that have more recently contributed to the startup's downward spiral, it's also worth noting that its spendings have overlapped its earnings by a large margin. Last year, only 4,929 Ocean SUVs were delivered in total, while spending amounted to $904.9 million in the same period of time. It also appears that things aren't going too well in the accounting department, as there have been reports that Fisker has failed to collect and cash millions of dollars worth of checks from buyers following initial deliveries, resulting in a scramble to hunt down its missed earnings. What's more, Consumer Reports was among the customers who were told that Fisker couldn't find their checks. Yikes.

Shortly before these troubling reports surfaced in March of this year, production of the Ocean had been halted at Magna Steyr's assembly plant in Austria. A few months later in May, executives at Magna claimed that production of the electric crossover would not continue. Alongside the pause in production, Fisker slashed Ocean prices by tens of thousands of dollars while it struggled to sell its cars––in fact, it accidentally became America's cheapest EV when the Sport base model dropped from $38,999 to $24,999. However, some deeper research from Motor1 revealed that the Sport and Ultra trims were not in inventory at the time, which meant that the $24,999 Ocean never quite existed, and the range-topping Extreme was the only way to get the keys to the electric crossover––that model got its price tag cut from $52,999 to $34,999.

That eventful month of March also revealed that Fisker was in talks with other automakers about possibly acquiring the troubled startup to save it from further turmoil. And despite the ongoing reports about mismanagement and layoffs, around five automakers were allegedly interested in purchasing Fisker. Nissan was one of them, but it ultimately backed out of the deal for unknown reasons.

It's worth mentioning that Fisker also had plans for a three additional models to sit alongside the Ocean, but all of them appear to be dead in the water following the company's bankruptcy.

The most interesting of which was the Pear, a quirky small crossover that would have served as the brand's $29,900 entry-level offering. It brought funky styling and a tailgate that rolled into the rear bumper, along with two different battery options promising either 180 miles or 320 miles of range, rear- and all-wheel drive powertrain configurations, and a 0-60 time of 6.3 seconds in base form. Production was supposed to begin in July 2025 at Foxconn's production facility in Ohio.

The ill-fated startup also had plans for a $45,400 electric pickup known as the Alaska. Nissan was allegedly interested in building this model for Fisker starting in early 2025, and it was supposed to offer up to 340 miles of range from a 113.0-kWh battery pack. A cheaper entry-level variant was supposed to arrive later with a 75-kWh battery pack delivering up to 230 miles of range.

Last but certainly not least, Fisker planned to introduce a sleek five-seat hardtop convertible dubbed the Ronin, which was supposed to pack over 1,000 horsepower, up to 600 miles of range, and a 0-60 mph time of around two seconds. Only 999 examples of the hand-built grand tourer were planned, and pricing was set at a hefty $385,000.

It would be rather fitting to wrap this up with a reminder that Henrik Fisker's companies have a notorious history of going defunct. The original makers of the beautiful (albeit flawed) Fisker Karma filed for bankruptcy in November 2013, as the company had spent a whopping $1.4 billion despite managing to build less than 2,500 of its plug-in hybrid grand tourers. Today, the Karma still exists under the Chinese-owned Karma Automotive, which continues to spit out a rebranded, lightly reskinned version of the original car more than a decade later.

It remains to be seen if today's Fisker will see the same fate as the Fisker Automotive that came before it––if so, that would mean its assets will be sold to a Chinese company that will spit out its products as rebranded, lightly reskinned versions of themselves and sell them for years to come.

Anyway, it appears that karma has struck again. Perhaps Fisker will get the financial stuff straight the third time around.

Image Credits: Fisker