American electric car company files for bankruptcy

Fisker's bankruptcy filing was accepted by a Delaware court on June 17. Before this time, the company's assets were estimated at $500 million - $1 billion and its debts were $100-500 million.

"Like other companies in the electric vehicle industry, we have faced many challenges over the past period that have impacted our ability to operate effectively," Fisker said.

Fisker plans to sell assets and restructure debt after burning through cash while building its first electric vehicle, the Ocean SUV. Among its top 20 creditors are tech giants Adobe, Google and SAP.

The future of the US electric carmaker has been in doubt since March, when it warned it had insufficient cash to operate. It has also failed to secure new investment from a major automaker, making it even more difficult to operate.

"Fisker has been struggling for months. So this announcement is not surprising. They are not the first electric car company to declare bankruptcy. And they probably won't be the last," said Garrett Nelson, vice president of CFRA Research.

Several American electric vehicle companies have gone bankrupt in the past two years, including Proterra, Lordstown and Electric Last Mile Solutions. Declining demand, difficulty finding capital and operational challenges amid global supply chain problems have led to their demise.

Fisker is an electric car company founded in 2007 by renowned Danish car designer Henrik Fisker. He has been responsible for the design of many famous sports cars, such as the Aston Martin DB9, V8 Vantage, Artega GT and BMW Z8. He was also previously the Design Director of Aston Martin.

Henrik Fisker’s electric car company has a different business model than many automakers, as it outsources all of its manufacturing. Its Ocean electric SUV is made in Austria by a company called Magna.

Last year, Magna produced more than 10,193 SUVs for Fisker, but only half of those were delivered to customers. Fisker forecasts it will deliver 20,000 this year.

Electric vehicle sales in the US will hit a record 1.2 million in 2023, or 7.6% of the national auto market, according to Cox Automotive estimates. That share is forecast to rise to 30-39% by the end of the decade.

But as elsewhere in the world, the electric car market in the world’s largest economy has begun to slow. Traditional automakers from Ford to GM have scaled back production and postponed plans for electric vehicles. Tesla, which accounted for 55% of sales last year, has warned that “growth will slow significantly.”