-By Warner Todd Huston
Fisker Automotive, Inc., the much-celebrated maker of luxury electric cars, has announced that it is firing 80% of its employees after failing to finalize an investment deal.
The manufacturer of the rechargeable Karma auto informed 160 workers of the layoffs coming to the Anaheim, California-based company. Fisker was said to have employed 200 before this week’s announcement.
This is only the latest blow to the “green” auto company. Only last month the company’s name-sake, Henrik Fisker, resigned over “unspecified” disagreements with other executives and the company stopped production of its cars after its lithium-ion battery supplier declared bankruptcy.
The battery company, A123 Systems Inc., declared bankruptcy in October of last year despite the millions in in tax dollars pumped into the company by President Obama.
According to Bloomberg, Fisker has retained the services of Kirkland & Ellis LLP to explore a restructuring of the company.
On April 4, Fisker board member Ray Lane resigned as the Chairman of Hewlett-Packard only weeks after narrowly avoiding being ousted by a vote of shareholders at HP’s annual meeting. Lane was accused of mismanaging the $13.1 billion acquisition deal of Autonomy Corp. in 2011, a deal that eventually sent HP stock tumbling.
Insiders feel that with such mismanagement already on his resume, it might not be long before Lane is ousted at Fisker, as well. Insiders also feel that Fisker will soon declare bankruptcy.
Fisker Automotive is funded by a venture capital outfit whose partners include former Vice President and green guru Al Gore and was the recipient of a half billion dollars in federal loans issued by the Obama administration. But even with the millions in federal loans, Fisker sparked controversy by making plans to manufacture its cars in Finland in 2011.
Spokesmen for Delaware’s Democrat Governor Jack Markell, where one Fisker plant was planned to begin manufacturing, expressed disappointment over the layoffs.
“We have been closely monitoring the company’s situation and are disheartened to learn that Fisker intends to lay off most of its remaining workforce. This does not bode well for a company that, at one point, had the potential to produce a cutting-edge clean technology vehicle in Delaware. But without a battery supplier and without access to hundreds of millions in capital from the U.S. Department of Energy, Fisker is in a difficult position,” said Markell spokeswoman, Cathy Rossi.
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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