First quarter 2024 earnings are out, and if you’re bullish on electric vehicle startups and stalwarts, it’s an ugly day. The news for four of the major independent players is grim, although three of them could say that there’s potential for an upside down the road. As for the last one, well, let’s tackle that first.
The Game Might Be Up for Fisker
After a raft of bad news earlier this year, it seems like Fisker is headed directly for bankruptcy, and it may cease operations as well. The latest news hails from the contract manufacturer that actually builds the Ocean SUV for Fisker, Magna International of Austria. In the company’s earnings report, it says “Our current Outlook [sic] assumes no further production of the Fisker Ocean,” and furthermore that the company could suffer $75 million in losses related to the abbreviated Ocean contract.
In other words, the factory that builds Oceans is all but saying no more Oceans will be built. Since that’s the only vehicle that Fisker actually produces, and it doesn’t currently have another place to build the Ocean, this appears to be the beginning of the tragic final act for Fisker’s operation.
In related news, the company’s Austrian subsidiary filed for bankruptcy.
Rivan Is Expected to Burn Billions in Cash
Rivian’s Q1 earnings report is sobering. The good news, if you can call it that, is that deliveries are up, production is up, and revenue is up—the latter up $661 million. Deliveries for Q1 are up 71 percent to 13,588, no small figure. And the smaller, more affordable R2 is on the horizon. And there are even rumors that Apple is thinking about partnering with the company, a significant development if true considering how the company wound down its Project Titan (the “Apple Car”) program recently.
The bad news is that Rivian is burning cash, and not a little. The company’s net loss for all of 2023 is a staggering $5.4 billion. Its Q1 2024 net loss is $1.45 billion, up from $1.2 billion from the same time last year. The cash burn is expected to continue, the company says.
Lucid Is Also Burning an Enormous Amount of Cash
Lucid doesn’t produce nearly as many cars as Rivian (yet), with the company noting that it is behind on its goal to build 9,000 cars this year. The Q1 total loss is $685 million, which is down from Q1 2023’s $780 million loss. Revenue is also up, to $173 million for Q1, and it says it has $2.2 billion in cash sitting around. So the news isn’t good, and demand for its cars is below expectations, but the company doesn’t seem to being in the midst of an existential crisis—yet.
Report: Tesla Lays Off Even More Workers
After high-profile layoffs on its Supercharger and public policy teams, Tesla has apparently laid off further employees in the engineering, service, and software groups. Tesla hasn’t yet confirmed the layoffs and it’s unclear how many employees are involved, given that at the moment there’s only one report from “sources familiar” in the company. Given several waves of layoffs and resignations of important executives, though, it seems as if anything is on the table for CEO Elon Musk.
