Fisker reports wider-than-expected losses, underwhelming deliveries for the third quarter

Electric vehicle startup Fisker on Monday reported a third-quarter loss that was wider than Wall Street expected, and said it delivered only about 1,100 Ocean electric SUVs in the third quarter.

But, it said, deliveries have accelerated since quarter-end, with over 1,200 Oceans delivered in October and “hundreds” more en route to customers now.

Fisker shares were down more than 10% in after-hours trading immediately following the news.

The company said it and its manufacturing partner, Magna International, built 4,725 Oceans in the third quarter and delivered 1,097 to customers. Fisker produced 1,022 Oceans in the second quarter of 2023.

“We are rapidly scaling our delivery infrastructure to support even higher volumes of deliveries of our class-leading product to our loyal customers,” CEO Henrik Fisker said in a statement. “We are gaining momentum and delivered more units in the month of October than in all of the third quarter.”

The company said in a statement on Sept. 26 that it expected to be delivering 300 Oceans per day before the end of 2023.

The news came as part of Fisker’s third-quarter earnings report Monday.

Fisker’s net loss for the quarter was $91 million, or 27 cents per share, wider than the 19 cents expected by Wall Street analysts polled by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv.

Revenue for the period was $71.8 million. Wall Street had been expecting revenue of $109 million, but CNBC isn’t comparing reported revenue to projections because of thin analyst coverage.

A year ago, Fisker reported a net loss of $149.3 million, or 49 cents per share, and revenue of about $14,000.

Fisker had $625 million in cash and cash equivalents on hand as of Sept. 30, versus $521.8 million as of June 30. The EV maker raised an additional $300 million via a convertible note offering in July, and another $150 million in September.

Fisker didn’t immediately update its production guidance for the full year. It said in August that it expected Magna to build 20,000 to 23,000 Oceans at its contract manufacturing plant in Austria by year-end.

Fisker had originally planned to report its third-quarter results last week, before the U.S. markets opened on Nov. 8. But it abruptly postponed its report early that morning, saying that the departure of its chief accounting officer on Oct. 27 and the appointment of a new one on Nov. 6 had “delayed the completion of the financial statements and related disclosures.”  

Fisker didn’t explain why its chief accounting officer left.

Fisker’s chief technology officer, Burkhard Huhnke, also left the company in late October for “personal reasons,” according to a regulatory filing. The company named David King, a senior engineer who had previously led its vehicle-body engineering team, to the post on Nov. 3.