

Fisker Automotive lays off majority of employees - peterjancelis
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/fisker-automotive-lays-off-majority-of-employees/

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jasongill
My father was laid off last February when Fisker did their first round of
layoffs on the east coast. What a terribly run company, which is sad, because
the car really did look good (from some angles...)

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tptacek
I know nothing at all about them. What made them terribly run? Thanks!

~~~
pmorici
For starters their vehicles had a reputation for spontaneously combusting...

[http://www.autoblog.com/2012/08/19/fisker-karma-cooling-
fan-...](http://www.autoblog.com/2012/08/19/fisker-karma-cooling-fan-fire-
voluntary-recall/)

~~~
hkmurakami
Well don't Ferraris have that reputation too? :P

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jweir
The company didn't have insurance on it shipment of cars lost from Sandy? That
doesn't sound right.

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whatgoodisaroad
They did, sort of.

[http://green.autoblog.com/2012/12/29/fisker-sues-
insurance-c...](http://green.autoblog.com/2012/12/29/fisker-sues-insurance-
company-over-karmas-damaged-in-hurricane-s/)

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MRSallee
I had a bad feeing about these guys when Car and Driver published a review in
which the green Fisker got 24 miles of range on a charge and, after that,
retuned just 24 mpg on gasoline.

Overweight, overwrought. Further shows how impressive it is Tesla makes
compelling electric cars -- no other "start up" has come close.

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rdl
What happens if you picked wrong and bought a Karma instead of a Model S a few
years ago? Is an orphaned Karma still a viable car, or will it drop in price
rapidly (or go up, as a collector's item?)

I guess most people buying $100k cars can afford another one, though.

~~~
MikeCapone
Leonardo DiCaprio bought one iirc. But Fisker failing probably just makes it
even more collectible now.

~~~
rdl
A high profile HN person has one, too (I've seen it, it's sexy, but too heavy
by about 1200 pounds).

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ricardobeat
They left 320 $100k+ cars out in the open without insurance?

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djt
"act of god"

~~~
jonknee
Many thousands of people had their cars replaced by insurance companies from
the same storm. If Fisker didn't have the proper coverage that's simply their
fault.

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lifeisstillgood
Two things stand out:

    
    
      said about 150 employees had been fired while about 50 
      senior managers and executives had been retained.
    

If that is true, it says a _lot_ about the internal culture. And it ain't
good.

    
    
      April 22 deadline to repay a portion of a $193 million 
      low-interest loan from the United States Department of 
      Energy. Although Fisker was originally granted a $528.7 
      million loan in late 2009, that money was frozen after 
      Fisker fell short of its production targets.
    

Look, if the government loans you 1/2 billion of soft loans, its really really
important to cheat and lie about how those production targets are going.

Oh, and now that the US taxpayer has funded a 500m dollar investment into
developing electric cars, European and Chinese manufacturers are sniffing
around to pick it up at pennies on the dollar.

Come on guys! Pick free market _or_ protectionism. And if you must mix the
two, do it the right way round !

~~~
tptacek
They didn't get 500MM from the USG, did they?

~~~
pmorici
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisker_Automotive#U.S._governme...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisker_Automotive#U.S._government_loan)

They spent $193 million from the $500 million before the US government cut
them off. The "loan" was part of a 25 billion dollar DOE program.

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jaebrown
After reading the story on Fisker and their founder, I wonder if this is
"Karma"?

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briandear
Another wasted 'investment' by the government in so-called green energy.
Between the billions of dollars wasted on Solyndra, Fiskar and that cohort, we
could have cut taxes and made it easier for successful companies to grow and
expand. Instead we subsidize losing products while increasing the regulatory
and tax burden on small businesses making it an exceptionally difficult growth
environment. Electric cars might be nice in theory but their environmental
impact is far worse than the normal cars we have today. The components in the
batteries for instance produce far more pollutants in ther manufacture than a
gasoline car produces in 5 years. Yet, electric cars "feel" good despite the
irony that they do nothing to improve the environment.

~~~
tstactplsignore
Wow, this is the most uninformed post I have ever read on HN. 1\. Government
investments in alternative energy have been extraordinarily successful:
<http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10165> To quote: "the report
examines 17 R&D programs in energy efficiency and 22 programs in fossil energy
funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). These programs yielded economic
returns of an estimated $40 billion from an investment of $13 billion."

B. The Department of Energy's loan program has been an overwhelming success;
failure rates have been lower than expected.
[http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/21/1038907/-Solyndra-a...](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/21/1038907/-Solyndra-
accounts-for-less-than-2-of-the-DOE-s-successful-Loan-Program)

C. Electric cars have an overall lower carbon footprint than gasoline
vehicles.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-
in_electric_vehicle#Air_po...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-
in_electric_vehicle#Air_pollution_and_greenhouse_gas_emissions)

And, you are missing the whole point. As the grid becomes completely generated
by renewable, then the carbon footprint of electric vehicles will be
drastically reduced.

~~~
rdl
I'd prefer that the government tax bads/externalities vs. trying to encourage
good, though -- a fossil fuel tax which is small but constantly increasing
would be the single best environmental and energy-independence policy the US
could have. (I'd also consider a tax on fossil fuel imports on top of that,
and surtaxes on certain means of extraction to cover the environmental risks
and other externalities, but a lot of that could come from mining fees from
DoI -- and, the is a good case for "use up the foreign and low-cost sources
first, retaining US reserves longer").

If the tax goes from 5-10% now to something in the thousands of percent over
100 years, it would lower fossil fuel use even as efficiency increases, while
encouraging alternate fuels. The only losers would be primary producers (and I
guess refiners, etc.) of fossil fuels; broad-spectrum energy companies should
do ok since other forms of energy are still available and would gradually
replace fossil fuels.

There is _not_ a shortage of capital. It's just that right now, energy
investments in new technologies aren't always viable. Creating an escalating
tax would instantly make a lot of new energy projects viable, and private
capital would be happy to make loans/equity investments/etc.

~~~
loganfrederick
For anyone who reads this comment and is interested in this concept, it's
economic academic name is "Pigovian Tax":
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax>

~~~
rdl
Pigovian taxes are just the "tax externalities" part. I think it's just as
important that it be operational on a long term scale, with a steady and
predictable increase, to influence decisions.

It would be unfair to tax a company overnight at a high rate for this stuff,
because it would strand a lot of current investments. Replacing capital goods
20y ahead of schedule might actually have an environmental cost higher than
doing so in 5-10 years, since there's a lot of energy and other pollution
embodied in the capital goods. It also picks winners and losers based on
something which wasn't made clear to people in advance.

Just as bad is saying "in 10 years, we're going to heavily tax or ban X",
which would cost industry (say) $1t. "Good" participants, say half the market,
spend $500b fixing things. "Bad" participants spend nothing on remediation but
$10b on lobbying and then strand the $500b improvements made by the "good"
participants.

In the US, it would essentially require a treaty or constitutional amendment
to bind the government to a long-term plan which might otherwise be overturned
through lobbying.

An escalating tax at least has the benefit of being minor pain up front, and
viewed as "fair", so industry is more likely to cooperate. It's not worth
going to the mattresses over a 5% tax, particularly if it takes an immediate
ban or 50% tax off the table. Over time, the revenue stream will become
important to the Government and to other positive government programs, so
it'll be harder for industry to lobby to overturn it. At most, they might be
able to lobby for a "temporary" freeze at a certain level.

