Electric-vehicle start-up
Fisker
is going through a rocky stretch. Investors have been feeling the pain.
Fisker provided a business update on Friday, slashing production guidance again.
The company now expects to produce about 10,000 all-electric Ocean SUVs in 2023. Guidance given in November, just a few weeks ago, called for 13,000 to 17,000 units. In August, guidance called for 20,000 to 23,000 units this year. The guidance provided in May called for 32,000 to 36,000 units in 2023.
CEO Henrik Fisker remained positive. “We may not have hit our original forecast but taking current market conditions and negative sentiments around EV sales into account, I would say we are doing quite well,” he said in a press release.
Shares were rising 7% in premarket trading, while
S&P 500
and
Nasdaq Composite
futures were both down slightly.
A big jump in the stock price might be a surprise but starting points matter. Coming into Friday trading, Fisker shares have declined more than 70% over the past three months.
Reduced guidance and management turmoil contributed to the declines. Two chief accounting officers have left the company and Fisker disclosed material accounting weaknesses in its most recent quarterly report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The update Friday also included management changes. Dan Quirk is now the executive vice president for finance and accounting. He came from Ernst & Young. Axel Buhr is now vice president for finance and controller operations.
Along with the management update, Fisker also announced it was in negotiations to sell zero-emission vehicle credits to major auto makers. EV makers in several geographies around the world earn credits for selling cars that don’t emit carbon dioxide. They can be traded for cash to car companies that don’t produce their quotas of zero-emission vehicles.
The move by Fisker isn’t a surprise. It’s what EV makers do.
Tesla
generated $489 million in regulatory credit revenue in the third quarter.
While credit sales are a positive, some relief after the recent stock turmoil is the more likely reason for the early share price rise on Friday.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
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