Fisker says it is planning more layoffs less than two months after cutting 15% of its workforce, as the electric vehicle startup struggles to raise cash to stay alive. Fisker expects to file for bankruptcy protection within the next 30 days if he can’t come up with that money, according to a regulatory filing from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company in danger said in the regulatory document It had only $54 million in cash and equivalents as of April 16 on Tuesday, and another $11.2 million that is not immediately accessible. Fisker said in the filing that he is currently trying to raise money to pay off a loan he defaulted on in order to avoid bankruptcy. The outstanding balance in mid-January was north of $300 million.
Fisker still employed 1,135 people worldwide as of April 19, according to the document. That’s down from 1,560 at the end of 2022 and about 1,300 at the end of September 2023. The company also said Tuesday that it will “reduce its physical footprint.”
This follows Fisker advertisement Monday afternoon that a second member of its board of directors left the company, the first of them at the end of March. The company has also hired a chief restructuring officer who is now solely in charge of approving Fisker’s budget as well as the decision-making process for any sale of Fisker’s business.
Fisker is on the verge of bankruptcy after the troubled launch of its first electric vehicle, the Fisker Ocean SUV, which began in June 2023.
The Ocean has been hampered by numerous issues, including buggy software, reports of sudden power loss and brake failures, and poor customer service, as TechCrunch reported in February. Fisker struggled to meet its internal sales goals and lost track of millions of dollars in customer payments for some of the vehicles it sold, prompting an internal audit that helped recover most of that money. He has spent the last few months trying to transition to a dealership model.
The Ocean is now subject to three separate federal investigations by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The company has not issued any recalls, but has stopped production of the SUV. Meanwhile, it cut prices on its existing inventory by up to 39% in a bid to generate short-term cash. The company has also been delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.
If Fisker ultimately seeks bankruptcy protection, it would be founder Henrik Fisker’s second automotive startup to do so. His previous endeavor, Fisker Automotive, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2013.
