According to reports citing inside sources from Fisker Automotive, the Anaheim, California-based carmaker has just laid off 160 of its employees, and has only kept a core group of 40 people to keep things running.
Matters have been going from bad to worse for the automaker over the course of the last twelve months, with its cars catching fire, drowning in New Jersey, having no battery packs and losing the creative driving force, co-founder Henrik Fisker, in addition to all of their well-documented money troubles.
This is being called a desperate move by a company that is frantically trying to keep itself afloat as it looks for a deal, any deal really, that will keep it in business. Currently, the only hope would be investment from China, or a complete acquisition by another company. Sources with knowledge of the matter say that Fisker is still working hard to achieve stability, and that they have not given up.
Still, we knew things were bad ever since they hired a bankruptcy firm to glaze over their files, and come up with a viable solution to raise the $500- (€384-) million needed to restart production of their only model, the Karma, at the Valmet factory, in Finland – production has been halted for months due to the downfall of A123 Systems.
They are also looking to regain access to a Department of Energy (DoE) loan, which is apparently the main issue stopping any of the deals from going forward. The 40 people they spared from being laid off had better be very good at what they do, because the situation for Fisker looks very shaky at the moment…
By Andrei Nedelea
Story References: LA Times via NBC
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