US EV Industry Shifts Back Into Reality Gear

At the start of each year, I write a piece in which I make a set of predictions about what will happen in the energy space during the coming 12 months. One prediction I made in this year’s story focused on the likelihood of a big fallout in America’s EV manufacturing industry. Citing Fisker and Rivian as examples, I questioned whether any of the pure-play electric vehicle companies based in the US had the ability to compete with Tesla in that market.

I took some heat from viewers that same week after I predicted on a podcast that every one of the US pure-play EV makers besides Tesla would be either in bankruptcy or teetering on the brink by the end of 2024. As things are turning out, my only regret there is that I didn’t predict they’d all be in that state by the middle of 2024 instead of the end of the year.

This week Fisker filed for bankruptcy, becoming the latest in a series of casualties in the growing falling-out in the EV sector. As the New York Times noted in its story on the matter, Fisker was one of a number of pure-play EV makers who were able to raise billions in startup funds from investors who got caught up in the EV frenzy during 2020 and 2021. Several of those firms, like Proterra, Arrival, and Lordstown Motors already preceded Fisker down the bankruptcy path. Others, like Rivian, are right on the verge of taking the same plunge.

Lucid makes just one model, a luxury sedan, and is struggling to find buyers. It boasted about setting a new delivery “record” in the first quarter of this year, but a closer search reveals that was for only 1,967 units. The carmaker followed that announcement with another in May that it would lay off 400 employees in an apparent effort to conserve cash.

Oof.