2023 Fisker Ocean on 2040-cars

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Fisker Pear will be built at Foxconn's Lordstown Motors plant

Shares of Lordstown Motors surged over 23% in trading before the bell on Thursday after the electric vehicle startup said it had closed the deal to sell its Ohio facility with Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn. The Taiwanese firm confirmed it will also make Fisker's Pear compact car model from 2024 alongside the Endurance at the Ohio facility. The deal closure buys Lordstown Motors some much needed breathing room and gives production of its electric pickup a chance at success, said Danni Hewson, analyst at AJ Bell. "Building electric vehicles is an expensive business at the best of times. Right now the supply crunch is making life incredibly difficult and Lordstown Motors and its shareholders will be feeling a rather heady sense of relief today," added Hewson. Setting up manufacturing lines for electric vehicles is a capital intensive process and startups in the past have struggled to raise sufficient capital to mass produce vehicles. Foxconn will now manufacture Lordstown Motors' Endurance electric pickup truck which will go into production in the third quarter of the year and be in the hands of customers in the fourth quarter. Lordstown Motors will retain some assets including its hub motor, battery assembly lines and intellectual property. The company said the deal closure results in $260 million of proceeds, including the reimbursement of certain operating and expansion costs. The stock fell over 95% from its high of over $30 per share in September 2020, weeks after going public through a merger with a blank check company. It is currently trading under $2. Reporting by Akash Sriram and Bansari Mayur Kamdar in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Fisker could be renamed when production restarts in 2015

The Orange County Register has an update on Wanxiang's plans for Fisker, and it starts with the idea that you would see brand new Karmas back on the road in mid-2015. From there the goals get less certain, the OCR saying the Surf station wagon "could ship in 2016" and the mid-priced Atlantic "might come in 2017." The targets came from an interview with interim CEO Roger Brown as he laid out how fluid the present situation is. The primary certainty, according to Brown, is that new owner Wanxiang is determined to execute on its vision and "build a great car company." The puzzle pieces that make that picture are still being assembled – even the name of the post-bankruptcy company, Fisker Automotive for now, is being debated. No matter what the name will be, Wanxiang and Brown need to establish the blood and bones of a company that can provide what the original Fisker Automotive didn't. Brown said they're looking for a permanent CEO over the next three months, they need to settle on a location for headquarters and increase the staff from the current 25 to the 200 or so necessary to engineering a fully fleshed-out Karma and successive products, and figure out where cars are going to be built. Concerning workers, Brown revealed that, "We've been flooded with people that want to come back." As for manufacturing in the Delaware plant that Fisker Automotive still controls or somewhere else, we've heard there are even odds on US production, but the final answer will probably be delivered by the new CEO.

Weekly Recap: Aston Martin to add another sports car, new Lagonda sedan, EVs

Aston Martin will revamp and expand its lineup as part of a five-year plan laid out by the company's new executives. If it succeeds, the strategy will position Aston for growth as an independent automaker with a more stable future in its second century. Aston will replace all of the cars in its current lineup and add a fourth sports car to its stable. It currently has three: the DB9, Vanquish and Vantage. The unnamed sports car will be joined by a production version of the DBX concept – an all-wheel-drive electric car that treads near crossover territory – that was revealed at the Geneva Motor Show. Aston's electric strategy also includes a potential electric-powered Rapide. Eventually, Aston plans to build a new four-door Lagonda. Though Aston will diversify its portfolio and the range could expand to seven vehicles, it will limit production to around 7,000 units annually, said Aston Martin marketing and communications director Simon Sproule, who described the company's strategy in an interview with Autoblog. CEO Andy Palmer, who joined Aston last year from Infiniti, has also spoken recently about remaking the company for the future. EVs are a major part of Aston's future, Sproule stressed, because they allow the automaker to "balance" its portfolio. Aston is studying the feasibility of an electric Rapide and is working with an undisclosed engineering firm. It's likely to use a plug-in setup and would cost $200,000 to $250,000 or more. It could use either a rear-wheel or all-wheel-drive configuration. View 14 Photos "It's a study, but we're serious about it," Sproule said. He added for emphasis: "If not this, there will be an electric Aston Martin in the future." Aston has taken note of what Tesla has done with the brisk-driving Model S and decided that's the dynamic it wants for some of its own cars. Even though EVs don't emit the same sonorous note as a V12 – they're better than the alternative, Sproule said. "The sound of silence is much more preferable than the sound of a four-cylinder whining away under the hood of an Aston Martin," he said. Speaking of V12s, they're not going away. Aston will continue to make its own V12 engine, but will source its V8 from Mercedes-AMG (whose parent, Daimler, owns a small stake in Aston). While the V12 is sure to please the faithful, Aston admits EVs and the crossover-like DBX will rankle many. Sproule argues those are the moves that will keep Aston relevant.