Fisker held its third-quarter earnings call this week, during which the automaker cut its production forecast significantly for the year.
After Fisker delayed its Q3 earnings call from the planned date of November 8, the automaker officially held the call on Monday. During the call, Fisker said it is cutting its 2023 production forecast to 13,000-17,000 units, down from its previous goal of 20,000-23,000 units (via Automotive News). The Fisker Ocean was delivered to its first customer in May, and the California-based automaker says it has had difficulty delivering the vehicles it has produced.
“We have not been able to follow through with deliveries fast enough,” CEO Henrik Fisker said on Monday’s earnings call. “People have paid and are waiting for their cars, and some of them are getting really annoyed.”
Since Fisker doesn’t have its own manufacturing facility, it relies on its partners to produce its vehicles.
Fisker delivered a total of 1,097 Oceans in Q3, while it produced as many as 4,725 units. The company said it has delivered an additional 1,200 units in October, and it’s on pace to deliver even more in November. The automaker also plans to accelerate deliveries and production even further in the months to come, and CEO Fisker says the company is delivering in 10 countries, including the U.S. and across Europe.
@FiskerInc that’s great that you are lowering prices, however, maybe focus on delivering on time to those customers who paid and are awaiting. You were supposed to deliver our car on Friday 10/27. We received no car and could not get in touch with anyone. What is going on??
— Asma Ibrahim (@asmaibrahim83) October 31, 2023
Currently, the automaker plans to add logistics partners to help catch up on deliveries from its Graz, Austria plant, which builds the Ocean under contract. The company plans to lease its own facilities and increase staff to help delivery catch up with production.
Henrik’s spouse and company CFO Geeta Fisker said the updated forecast would give the company more time to scale its logistical platform, in order to aid the delivery catch-up.
“This is a very prudent change that we need to do to enable our global delivery and logistics platform to scale so we can serve our customers even better and we are not sitting on inventory,” Geeta Fisker. “It may be not be something Wall Street wants to hear.”
Last month, Fisker cut the price of the high-end Ocean Extreme to $61,499 in North America from its previous price of $68,999, and it increased lower-priced variants, both of which the company said were to address “competitive realities in the rapidly growing EV market.”
After the Ocean, Fisker plans to launch two EVs, an affordable crossover, dubbed the Pear, along with a mid-size electric pickup, called the Alaska. The Pear is expected to start at a price of $29,900 and will be produced at an upcoming factory in Ohio.
“We have two cars that are almost ready. We can bring them to market fast — we just need the capacity,” Fisker told Reuters last week in Germany.
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