electric vehicles

China’s EV upstart Nio switches on power swap station in Sweden • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 18, 2022Posted in China, electric vehicles, Europe, EV, nio, Sweden, TransportationNo Comments

Electric vehicle startup Nio is accelerating its expansion in Europe. The premium EV maker just launched its first power-swapping station in Varberg, Sweden, the company said in a LinkedIn post. When it comes to charging, Nio differentiates itself from its rivals by offering swappable batteries, which are upgradable and charge a monthly subscription fee, on top of the traditional plug-and-charge model. In its home market China, Nio’s battery-swapping systems are popping up around trendy malls and office highrises, and it’s taken the novel concept to a noticeable scale. As of November 6, the company had installed 1,200 of these swapping stations across China. The idea is to enable EV charging as fast as refueling a petrol car. The company said on its November earnings call that it planned to install 20 power swapping stations across Europe by the end of 2022 and increase the tally to 100 by next year. Nio began expanding in Europe last year, starting out in Norway, which has been aggressive in pushing EV adaption. Xpeng, Nio’s Chinese rival, also picked Norway as the first stop in its European expansion. Nio is setting itself up for an uphill battle in a crowded auto market in Europe, but it seems determined in growing its presence on the continent. Headed by the charismatic, English-speaking serial entrepreneur William Li, Nio hosted a splashy launch event in Berlin, which marked its official market entry in Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden. The company began by offering lease-only for its models in all European countries except Norway but shortly added the option for customers to purchase the vehicles after initial market feedback. It’s also ramping up its operational footprint in Europe, with an R&D center in Berlin to work on “localized development and deployment of digital cockpits and to continuously improve the intelligent digital experience of local users,” said Li on the earnings call. The carmaker now operates “Nio Houses“, which are essentially product showrooms and customer clubs, in ten major European cities. Possibly in a move to diversify supply chains from China, Nio recently began manufacturing products including its power swapping facilities out of Hungary and shipped its first Hungary-made swapping station to Germany in September.

GM says supply chain issues won’t affect EV profitability by 2025 • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in electric vehicles, General Motors, GM, TransportationNo Comments

General Motors says supply chain constraints won’t hinder the automaker’s goal of reaching electric vehicle profitability by 2025. GM expects its EV portfolio to have “the same margin profile” as its internal combustion engine portfolio over the next three years once factoring in U.S. tax credits for cars and trucks, CEO Mary Barra said Thursday at GM’s investor conference. The automaker expects to generate more than $50 billion in revenue from sales of its 30 EV models in 2025, with profit margins in the low to mid single digits. Investors have been skeptical of GM’s promises, citing macro headwinds like increased battery raw material costs. Doug Parks, GM’s executive vice president of global product development, purchasing and supply chain, admitted that those costs could put GM’s targets at risk. However, Parks said a combination of increased efficiencies in GM’s Ultium EV platform — which is the underlying EV and battery architecture that will help GM scale its EV lineup — and supply chain agreements that are locked in through 2025 will reduce those macro impacts. “GM has signed binding agreements to secure the battery raw materials to support 1 million units of annual capacity in North America by 2025,” said Parks. “These are not just handshakes, these are not just meetings or MOUs.” GM is hoping to reduce cell costs by nearly 40% to an $87 per kilowatt hour by 2025, and then down to a $70 per kilowatt hour from mid to late decade. The automaker’s stock experienced a mid-day spike, rising 1.75% at around 1:45 pm ET. At market close, GM’s share price settled at an increase of 0.39%. GM’s supply chain landscape Parks highlighted GM’s agreement with Livent to source lithium hydroxide from its North American facility starting in 2025, a strategic investment and collaboration with CTR to source lithium from the Salton Sea in California using a closed loop geothermal process, and an agreement to secure sustainable cobalt from Glencore’s Murrin Murrin mine in Australia. In addition, GM has made a strategic investment in Queensland Pacific Metals for cobalt and nickel processing in Australia, as well as a long-term agreement with Vale for high-grade nickel sourced and processed in Canada. “We also have an agreement with LG Chem for enough cathode active material through 2030 for the equivalent of 5 million units of EV production, a joint venture with [South Korean steel-making company] Posco on a plant in North America, which we expect will open in Quebec in the first quarter of 2025.” In the interim, Posco will supply GM with materials from their South Korean operations, said Parks. Parks added that GM has price controls in place for lithium that will dampen the volatility and pricing the market has seen over the past year. He noted the new clean energy tax credits will help GM accelerate its process of creating a domestic supply chain for EVs in North America. “The credits are very much in line with the strategy we’ve been executing for the past few years and will enable us to increase our footprint domestically with Free Trade Agreement partners.” GM is also working with recycling affiliates to take scrap from battery cell plants and return critical materials to make new batteries or even sell materials at market rate, said Parks. Beyond battery cells, Parks said GM has long-term supply agreements in place with key EV motor component suppliers, including binding agreements with GE to support the development of a North American and European base rare earth copper and electrical steel value chain. Many of these agreements are in place to help the company scale cell production rapidly once its four battery plants are underway. GM said its Lordstown, Ohio plant has already opened, with Spring Hill, Tennessee close behind. The automaker is also building a plant in Lansing, Michigan, and is exploring a location in Indiana for its fourth plant. Until those factories come online, GM is still mainly buying cells, which is a roadblock to high EV margins today.

Fiat CEO teases subscriptions, car-sharing for all-electric 500e launch in US • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in electric vehicles, fiat, LA Auto Show, Stellantis, TransportationNo Comments

Stellantis plans to “explore alternative business models,” such as subscriptions and car sharing, when it launches its all-electric Fiat 500e in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2024, Fiat CEO Olivier Francois told ZebethMedia at the 2022 Los Angeles Auto Show. The exec did not rule out limiting the 500e’s U.S. launch entirely to subscriptions come early 2024, saying: “Maybe you will never have a price. Maybe it will just be usership. Maybe there will be there will be a combination of both.” The executive added cryptically, “There will be a healthy dose of digital, that’s for sure. We all collectively need to reinvent the business model.” The all-electric Fiat 500e launched in Europe in 2020 and is considered a massive success for Stellantis. Whether it will be embraced by U.S. buyers is unclear. The original 500e, which was essentially a retro’d version of an internal combustion version of the same model, didn’t fare so well and was largely regarded as a compliance car in the U.S. This time, Francois suggested it would be different. When the Fiat 500e comes to North America in early 2024 it will have an estimate range of more than 150 miles, the ability to charge the battery up to 30 miles in five minutes and will come with an advanced driver assistance system that provides “Level 2+” features such as lane centering and adaptive cruise control, traffic sign recognition, blind spot detection and 360-degree parking sensors. If there was a theme to Francois’ comments around the North American rollout of the Fiat 500e, it was experimental. It seemed the brand is ready to try a variety of sales and launch tactics for the region. Fiat released a few details of the North American specs for the 500e vehicle, including that the battery will have more than 150-mile range. Olivier Francois, Fiat CEO and global CMO Stellantis, said the all-electric Fiat 500e will be able to charge the 85kW battery up to 30 miles in five minutes. The vehicle will come with an advanced driver assistance system that provides “Level 2+” features such as lane centering and adaptive cruise control, traffic sign recognition, blind spot detection and 360-degree parking sensors. The Fiat 500e will also come with the UConnect 5 connected car system and a 10.25-inch touchscreen. Image Credits: Kirsten Korosec Stellantis isn’t the first automaker to suggest that subscriptions could remake the car business. At the tail end of 2018, Volvo went as far as to say “don’t buy our cars” during an event for its Care By Volvo subscription. Though Volvo intended to make “having a car as easy as having a cell phone,” the program turned out to be anything but for some subscribers, who said encountered delays and mixups with dealerships. Today, Volvo’s subscription site greets visitors with a note that “inventory is currently unavailable online.” For its part, Francois claimed Fiat’s strategy had little to do with cranking U.S. sales, saying he was “capacity constrained” and instead focused on figuring out the “future of mobility with a car that’s designed for the city.”

WeaveGrid gets $35M Series B to help electrical grid cope with coming wave of EVs • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 15, 2022Posted in Climate, EC Enterprise Applications, EC Food Climate and Sustainability, electric vehicles, Enterprise, renewable energy, Startups, utilitiesNo Comments

Today, the electrical grid works because utilities have a time-tested playbook. They may not know exactly when you do your laundry, but they generally know washers and dryers run more in the evenings or on weekends. Air conditioners wind up when temperatures soar, and more lights click on during the dark winter months. But in the coming years, that playbook is going to go out the window. Renewables will reshape the grid, but EVs will present the real challenge. Utilities may know how many solar panels and wind turbines are hooked up, but what about how many EVs get plugged in every night? They might have a rough estimate at best. That’s where WeaveGrid comes in. The company’s enterprise SaaS serves as a platform integrating data from utilities, automakers, and drivers to help utilities manage the load that EVs place on the grid. This data will be increasingly important in the coming decade, when up to half of the U.S.’ 280 million vehicle fleet is predicted to become electrified. WeaveGrid hopes not only to help utilities plan for new generating capacity, it also wants to assist in identifying where they can most effectively upgrade their distribution infrastructure, which is going to need a significant overhaul. The average age of the grid’s power transformers, for example, is 25 years. “If 280 million vehicles all start charging around the same time at night, it’s going to create a lot of pressure on an aging infrastructure that’s really not ready to handle all of these giant batteries charging in a completely erratic manner,” said WeaveGrid CEO Apoorv Bhargava. To help coordinate millions of vehicles charging — and to ensure they’re ready when drivers need them — WeaveGrid’s platform pulls data from utilities, automakers and even smart EV chargers to build a picture of when and where the grid will need the most power. The company is announcing a $35 million Series B led by Salesforce Ventures, with participation from new investors Activate Capital, Emerson Collective, Collaborative Fund, and MCJ Collective. Existing investors Coatue, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Grok Ventures, and The Westly Group also invested in the round. It’s Salesforce Ventures’ first time leading a climate tech investment.

BasiGo to kick-off EV assembly in Kenya after $6.6M funding • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 15, 2022Posted in BasiGo, Climate, electric vehicles, kenya, TransportationNo Comments

BasiGo will begin assembling electric buses in Kenya from next month, ramping up its production of public transport vehicles (PSVs) as it targets to deliver 100 units by end of next year. The startup plans to deliver 15 of the 100 buses, manufactured using parts from China’s EV maker BYD Automotive, in January next year, having completed its six months pilot programme in the country’s capital, Nairobi. It also plans to expand its charging infrastructure network, with an initial focus on Nairobi, where its clients are mainly operational. The plans come against the backdrop of the new $6.6 million equity funding co-led by Novastar; an Africa-focused VC firm, Mobility54; the corporate venture capital arm of Toyota Tsusho, and Trucks.vc, a Silicon-Valley based vc firm that backs startups in the transport sector. This brings the total amount raised by BasiGo since its launch last year to $10.9 million. “As we prepare to deliver the next batch of e-buses to new, we are deploying the necessary charging infrastructure to support that expanded fleet. Currently, all of our customers are Nairobi public service vehicle operators and we are deploying charging infrastructure within the Nairobi area to support their operations. In the future, when we begin delivering to customers operating routes outside of Nairobi, we will expand the reach of our charging network beyond the city,” BasiGo CEO Jit Bhattacharya, who co-founded the startup with Jonathan Green (CFO), told ZebethMedia. To ensure adoption BasiGo’s Pay-As-You-Drive model makes it possible for bus owners to acquire the electric buses for a similar upfront cost of a diesel one”. The operators then pay a $0.17 subscription fee for every kilometer; a fee that covers the leasing of the e-bus battery, charging services and general vehicle maintenance; “In this respect, a BasiGo electric bus is always a higher return-on-investment for a bus owner compared to diesel buses. BasiGo’s K6 electric bus comes with an eight-year or 600,000-kilometer battery warranty direct from the manufacturer, BYD Automotive,” said Bhattacharya. The buses will come in 25 and 36-seater capacities, with a range of about 250 kilometers, which is enough to cover daily round trips. The buses are also a cheaper and cleaner alternative in Kenya’s public transport industry, currently dominated by fossil-fuel buses. There are about 20,000 diesel and petrol vehicles ferrying commuters across Nairobi, which are great contributors to the air-pollution that kills over 18,000 people every year in Kenya. BasiGo plans to supply over 1,000 mass transit electric buses to transport operators in Kenya over the next five years. “Over 90% of Kenya’s electricity already comes from renewables. Yet Kenya’s transport sector relies entirely on imported petroleum fuels. By electrifying Kenya’s public transport, we can make an immediate dent in climate emissions, clean up the air in our cities, and give bus owners relief from the rising cost of diesel. With this new funding, BasiGo is ready to bring the benefits of state-of-the-art electric transport to all people in Africa,” said Bhattacharya. BasiGo and its main competitor Opibus are the two EV startups in Kenya eyeing the mass transit sector. The launch of their buses follows plans by the government to roll-out Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) network, to be operated by green (electric, hybrid and biodiesel) vehicles, presenting a great business opportunity for EV players in the market.

Lyft-backed plan to fund electric cars flops in California • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in Climate, electric vehicles, Gavin Newsom, Lyft, Michael Moritz, Ron Conway, TransportationNo Comments

California voters shot down a plan to make electric vehicles more affordable for some residents, dealing a blow to Lyft and the EV industry alike. Proposition 30 would have taxed residents making more than $2 million a year to subsidize electric cars and public charging stations as well as funded wildfire prevention programs. Even with just 41% of the votes tallies so far, the defeat was clear. As of Wednesday afternoon, some 59% of voters rejected the proposition. The measure’s defeat comes as several states ready bans on gas-powered vehicles in urgent efforts to cut climate pollution. Prop 30’s primary backer was Lyft, which paid more than $48 million to support the would-be wealth tax. The measure’s opponents — which included Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom and venture capitalists Michael Moritz and Ron Conway — cast Prop 30 as a “Lyft grift,” calling it a “scheme to further line the pockets of Silicon Valley tech billionaires.” Yet, Prop 30 did not include carve-outs for ride-share companies. It would have raised tens of billions of dollars to push down the price of electric cars for individuals, including drivers for ride apps like Lyft and Uber. Both companies have committed to going electric by 2030, and this measure could have helped them hit their targets. Earlier this year, California mandated that nearly all ride-share vehicles go electric by 2030, as part of a broader effort to gradually push combustion engines off roads. Although the state already operates some programs to help cover the cost of going electric, Prop 30 could have provided further assistance. Without it, ride-app companies may be forced to fork up additional cash, one way or another, to incentivize their drivers to switch, so they’ll comply with the state’s mandate. Though more affordable options are gradually coming to market, electric vehicles are generally still in short supply, and most are too pricey up front for most people. This is no good for the climate, because light-duty vehicles like cars and SUVs make up more than half of transportation-related emissions in the U.S., per the EPA. On the NASDAQ, Lyft closed at $10.64, down by almost 2.4% from the prior day. The decline pales in comparison to the nosedive Lyft shareholders suffered on Monday, after disclosing hefty losses in its latest quarterly report. Earlier this month, Lyft laid off 683 employees, or about 13% of its workforce.

Canoo to buy vehicle manufacturing facility in Oklahoma City • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in Canoo, earnings, electric vehicles, TransportationNo Comments

Commercial electric vehicle company Canoo entered into an agreement to acquire a vehicle manufacturing facility in Oklahoma City, the company announced Wednesday along with its third-quarter earnings. The news comes a week after Canoo said it would build an EV battery module manufacturing facility in Pryor, Oklahoma. The new facility will be dedicated to producing Canoo’s electric Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle (LDV) and Lifestyle Vehicle (LV), an electric SUV. Canoo is still working on its “megamicro factory” in Pryor, but until that comes online, this new facility will help Canoo ramp production and bring EVs to market in 2023. Canoo CEO Tony Aquila said the company expects to start production for the LDV on November 17 and complete final certification in the first quarter of 2023. The goal is to build 15 production vehicles this year, which will go to committed order customers like NASA and Walmart. The Oklahoma City 120+ acre facility has “production-ready infrastructure” and is “strategically located with easy access to road and rail,” according to Canoo Aquila. Canoo will adapt the facility to accommodate a full vehicle assembly line with robotics, a paint shop and upfitting center. Canoo said the facility will be powered by clean energy. “Following these initial builds, we will then aggressively shift all our equipment and focus to our new facility during Q1 and Q2 of 2023,” Aquila said Wednesday. “As we start production, we expect the first sellable vehicle deliveries to occur in the back half of Q1 and we will ramp production in 2H 2023 to 20,000 units run rate by year end.” Aquila said the megamicro factory in Pryor is “a bit delayed due to economic reasons,” but that when Canoo is able to shift resources there, the startup will be able to double its run rate to 40,000 units by the end of 2024. Long term, the Oklahoma City facility announced Wednesday will focus on producing defence and specialty products, said Aquila. In April, NASA selected Canoo to provide crew transportation vehicles for the crewed Artemis lunar exploration launches, and in July, the U.S. Army selected Canoo to supply EVs for analysis and demonstration. Canoo Q3 financials Canoo closed out the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $6.8 million. That’s down from last quarter’s $33.8 million, and $224.7 million from the fourth quarter of 2021. In less than a year, Canoo burned through $217.9 million, and it’s still not generating revenue. Quarter-over-quarter, Aquila says Canoo’s cash burn is down 25% as the company continues to shift its expense mix, increasing the ratio of capital spend to operating spend. The company’s loss from operating activities totaled $109.4 million this quarter, and its GAAP net loss and comprehensive loss hit $117.7 million. Canoo says it has access to $200 million through an “at-the-market offering” program, as well, but access to capital isn’t the same thing as having cash on hand. “On the financing front, we have secured an additional $30 million in a PIPE and a note to be converted to cash or stock,” said Aquila, noting the company is in the final phases of evaluating different financing options for the Oklahoma facility. Canoo seems to be riding promises of future revenue to get access to more financing and stay afloat. After reporting first-quarter earnings this year, Canoo issued a growing concern warning, saying that it may not have enough funds to make it stay in business. Things improved for the company in the second quarter, in part due to its agreement with Walmart to sell 4,500 electric delivery vehicles. This not only assured future revenue for Canoo, but also gave the company another opportunity to go after additional non-dilutive and lower-cost capital financing opportunities. Since then, Canoo has also secured binding fleet orders from Kingbee and Zeeba to purchase 9,300 and 3,000 vehicles, respectively, with the option to increase to 18,600 and 5,450 vehicles, respectively. Today, Canoo has over $2 billion in total orders in its pipeline, according to Aquila. “The last two quarters have been very tight,” said Aquila. “The macro economic has worsened, pushing the cost of capital higher and forcing us to accelerate our maturity and manage costs efficiently to achieve our goals. We have been doing our best to manage cash, continued access to liquidity and dilution.” Aquila said that even though Canoo’s cash situation looks dire, he believes having less access to cash has led to more competitiveness and efficiencies. “Being able to teach the crew here how to run a business on ‘just in time’ milestone capital is a very disciplined approach as an investor, not just as the chairman and CEO,” he said “I know it is painful. But, you know, would you rather give a young company a lot of money, or would you rather give it money based on milestones?” Canoo revised its expenditure guidance for the remainder of the year, anticipating $70 million to $90 million in operating expenses, excluding stock-based compensation, and $30 million to $50 million of capital expenditures. “We are now on track for a 40% reduction in operating expenses for the second half of the year, which is significant improvement compared to a previously disclosed projection of 20% reduction,” said Ramesh Murthy, Canoo’s senior vice president of finance. Canoo’s stock, which closed at $1.17, is up 3.42% in after-hours trading.

Early results show defeat for California Prop 30, a plan to tax the rich and fund EVs • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 9, 2022Posted in Climate, electric vehicles, EV charging, Lyft, TransportationNo Comments

Californians seem to be voting against a proposal on the midterm election ballot that would tax the wealthiest Californians to help pay for electric vehicle tax incentives and EV charging infrastructure in the state. With about 53% of the state’s votes counted, Proposition 30 was losing 57.3% to 42.7%, according to California’s Secretary of State. California is already a leader in promoting a shift to electric cars and was the first state to ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035. Proposition 30, as the ballot proposal is called, promises to accelerate that shift by adding an additional 1.75% tax on incomes above $2 million. Aside from helping Californians, particularly low-income residents, shift to EVs, 20% of the funds would be used to pay for wildfire prevention and firefighter training. Ride-hailing company Lyft backed Prop. 30, contributing 95% of the campaign’s total funding, or $45 million. Lyft aims to have 100% of the vehicles on its platform be electric by 2030, so making EV incentives more available to low-income drivers would massively benefit the company. Lyft, which recently laid off 13% of workers, didn’t hit revenue and active rider targets in its third quarter earnings, causing its stock to fall and investors to fear the ride-hailing company is ceding too much ground to competitor Uber. Opponents of the ballot, including California’s Governor Gavin Newsom, claim Lyft just wants to benefit itself at the expense of the rich. They argue it requires taxpayers to pay for EV subsidies that Lyft, as well as Uber, would have to pay on their own come 2030, when California law stipulates rideshare companies need EVs to account for 90% of their vehicle miles traveled. Curiously, Uber has stayed quiet on the matter. “Prop. 30 is being advertised as a climate initiative,” Newsom says in an advertisement slating the proposal. “But in reality, it was devised by a single corporation to funnel state income taxes to benefit their company. Put simply, Prop. 30 is a Trojan Horse that puts corporate welfare above the fiscal welfare of our entire state.” The California Democratic party, of which Newsom is a member, endorsed the ballot proposal. Newsom has teamed up with the Chamber of Commerce and other billionaires to oppose a proposal that they think will cause wealthy Californians to leave the state. Labor groups and environmentalists are defending the measure.

EV-maker Arrival gets delisting warning from Nasdaq • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 3, 2022Posted in Arrival, electric vehicles, NASDAQ, TransportationNo Comments

Commercial electric vehicle company Arrival has gotten a warning from the Nasdaq Stock Market because its stock price is trading too low. The company issued a press release Thursday saying it received a notification at the start of the week that it was not in compliance with the Nasdaq’s requirement to trade ordinary shares above $1.00 per share for 30 consecutive business days preceding the date of notification. The news comes just a couple of weeks after Arrival said it would restructure its business for the second time in six months, shifting focus away from the U.K. market to the United States, where its first EV vans were supposed to be delivered. Job cuts are expected, although Arrival has not come out with specifics on that yet. The company said it plans to further “right-size the organization and cut cash intensive activities” to extend its cash runway, which was $330 million at the end of the third quarter. Arrival has a grace period of 180 days, or until May 1, 2023, to meet the minimum bid requirement under Nasdaq’s listing rules. The company just needs to maintain a closing bid price of $1.00 per share or higher for at least 10 consecutive business days to get out of the woods. If the company can’t raise its share price by May, it may get an additional 180-day grace period if it effects a reverse stock split, or a stock merge, which consolidates the number of existing shares into fewer higher-priced shares. Arrival’s share price was $0.69 in after hours trading Thursday. The EV company went public via a $660 million special purpose acquisition deal with CIIG Merger in March last year. Arrival began trading at $22 and immediately started a slow descent to its current share price. The company has had many struggles since its debut, including production delays, a class action lawsuit against the company and wide-scale layoffs. In early October, Arrival finally got its first electric van off the production line at the company’s microfactory in Bicester, U.K. It’s not clear if Arrival will continue producing vehicles in Bicester. The company has said it plans to open a second factory in Charlotte, North Carolina next year. Arrival told ZebethMedia it would not comment at this time, but that it would have a business update on November 8.

Fisker bumps up production for all-electric Ocean SUV • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 3, 2022Posted in electric vehicles, fisker, Fisker Ocean, Foxconn, magna, TransportationNo Comments

Fisker is raising its manufacturing forecast two weeks before its first electric vehicle, the Ocean SUV, enters production. The automaker plans to produce 42,400 Ocean SUVs by the end of 2023, up from an initial forecast of 40,000, due to strong demand in the U.S. and Europe. The company said it has received 62,000 reservations for the $37,499 Ocean and expects 80,000 orders by the end of the year, compared with an initial target of 50,000. That means that not everyone who has reserved an Ocean will receive one in 2023. “For us, I don’t see it as a bad thing because that means we’re fully booked out, which is great,” CEO Henrik Fisker told ZebethMedia. Many of those reservations came in August, shortly ahead of the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which eliminates the $7,500 federal tax credit for EVs built abroad. “It was a Friday when it looked like Congress would pass the bill, and I immediately got together with three executives and we said, ‘Hey, what can we do?’” Fisker said. The company scrambled to launch a redesigned website by Monday afternoon and put out a press release notifying customers they had a week to reserve the Ocean before losing eligibility for the tax credit. “We acted quickly and enabled Ocean reservation holders to enter into a binding contract to potentially retain eligibility for the old federal EV tax credit,” Fisker said. “In less than a week, we sold out our U.S. allotment of Ocean Sport and Ultra trim levels.” The Ocean will enter production in Graz, Austria, on November 17, the same day slated for the launch of its 3D configurator as well as updates to its mobile phone app and website. Fisker will deliver a fleet of 15 SUVs to partner Magna in December. Fisker said it is in discussions with potential partners to boost capacity mid-2024 by adding a U.S. production site. The automaker, which went public through a SPAC deal in 2020, reported a widening net loss of $149.3 million, or a .49 loss per share, for the quarter ended September 30. That compares with a net loss of $109.8 million, or a .37 loss per share, for the same quarter a year ago. Revenue for the third quarter was $14 million, slightly less than the $15 million it posted for the same period last year. During its quarterly earnings call on Wednesday, the automaker outlined its quarterly production plan for 2023. Fisker plans to build “more than 300” Ocean units by the end of the first quarter, 8,000 units in the second quarter, 15,000 in the third, and the balance of the remaining 42,400 units in the fourth. Fisker also said it is on track to start production of its second vehicle, the Fisker PEAR crossover, in 2024 with partner Foxconn at the former Lordstown Motors plant in Ohio. Foxconn purchased the site, originally a General Motors factory, from struggling EV startup Lordstown Motors in May. The company said it has received more than 5,000 reservations for the sub-$30,000 PEAR, an acronym for “Personal Electric Automotive Revolution.” A third model, a luxury GT sports car known internally as Project Ronin, is still in development, Fisker said.