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To call Fisker a \u201cTesla<\/a> rival\u201d might be a stretch at this point. The electric-vehicle maker\u2019s market cap has plunged to $72 million, down from a peak of $4.1 billion in 2021. Compare that to the $542 billion enjoyed by Elon Musk\u2019s juggernaut.<\/p>\n Fisker did receive some much-needed good news this week, winning an iF Design Award for its Ocean SUV. That was offset, however, by Consumer Reports<\/em> giving the vehicle a scathing review<\/a>\u2014not the first one it\u2019s received<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The design award comes amid a torrent of troubling news.<\/p>\n Last month, Fisker issued a going concern warning<\/a>, saying it would lay off 15% of its workforce. It also received a notice from the New York Stock Exchange for noncompliance as its stock closed at under $1 on average for 30 trading days consecutively. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a preliminary probe<\/a> into claims of \u201cunintended vehicle movement\u201d with the Ocean.<\/p>\n This week, Fisker announced a production pause of six weeks to \u201calign inventory levels,\u201d adding that it missed an interest payment<\/a>, may need to seek bankruptcy protection, and is in continuing negotiations with an unnamed large automaker that might make an investment in it. (Reuters reported a few weeks ago that Fisker is in advanced talks<\/a> with Nissan<\/a>, citing unnamed sources).<\/p>\n Fisker\u2019s mounting woes come as the EV sector faces slowing sales growth, and as more consumers turn instead to hybrid models, much to the benefit of Toyota<\/a>, which pioneered the technology.\u00a0<\/p>\n Former Ford CEO Mark Fields believes the transition to EVs will happen, but more slowly than automakers anticipated\u2014spelling difficulties for EV startups<\/a>. \u201cWith this longer path, a number of them are going to get into real financial trouble, and you\u2019re seeing that play out right now,\u201d he told<\/a> CNBC\u2019s Squawk on the Street<\/em> last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n With doubts swirling<\/a> about Fisker\u2019s future, CEO Henrik Fisker recently told<\/a> Yahoo<\/a> Finance: \u201cI believe that we have a future\u2014otherwise I wouldn\u2019t be here. And I believe we\u2019re gonna manage to get out of this, I would say, general EV slump that there is out there.\u201d<\/p>\n But Fisker\u2019s problems might extend beyond the slump.<\/p>\n Consumer Reports<\/em> called<\/a> the Fisker Ocean as \u201cunfinished,\u201d \u201clost at sea,\u201d and \u201cone of the strangest cars we\u2019ve ever encountered,\u201d knocking the software and describing the powertrain as \u201cbizarrely tuned.\u201d That followed an earlier take<\/a> by influential YouTuber Marques Brownlee (aka MKBHD), who called the Ocean the \u201cworst car I\u2019ve ever reviewed.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, the Ocean has its fair share of fans<\/a> and defenders<\/a>, and the iF Design Award called it<\/a> \u201cbeautifully designed,\u201d adding that its \u201csculptural surfaces, muscular stance, and slim lighting exude a powerful road presence.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Fisker told Fortune<\/em> it had no comment on Consumer Reports<\/em> review, but it added: \u201cWe are proud to have received the iF Design award. The Fisker Ocean has received numerous awards at this point, demonstrating that we have produced an excellent vehicle that has captured a deservedly great deal of recognition.\u201d<\/p>\n The accolades from a design competition are perhaps not surprising: Henrik Fisker has designed luxury cars for the likes of BMW and Aston Martin, to much acclaim.<\/p>\n But designing cars is not nearly as difficult as producing them profitably at a large scale, as Tesla CEO Elon Musk has often noted.<\/p>\n \u201cThe issue is not about coming up with a car design\u2014it\u2019s absolutely about the production system,\u201d Musk said<\/a> in 2019 when unveiling the Model Y. \u201cYou want to have a good product to build, but that\u2019s basically the easy part. The factory is the hard part.\u201d<\/p>\n In the case of Fisker, the company leaves the job of making the Ocean to Magna Steyr, a contract manufacturer in Austria. Henrik Fisker told<\/a> Automotive News<\/em> last week that the Ocean\u2019s early quality problems stemmed from the difficulty of getting components from different suppliers\u2014each with their own software\u2014to work seamlessly together.\u00a0<\/p>\n A cash-strapped EV startup relying on a contract manufacturer is less equipped to integrate components, of course, than a legacy automaker. That may help explain the Fisker Ocean suffering quality woes even as it wins accolades for its design.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nA \u2018general EV slump\u2019<\/h2>\n
\u2018The hard part\u2019 <\/h2>\n
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