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Fisker Inc. stock rose about 3% late Wednesday after the electric-vehicle company said its Ocean EV was on track for a November debut and reservations for the compact SUV have jumped.
Fisker
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said it lost $138.4 million, or 47 cents a share, in the fourth quarter, compared with a loss of $87.4 million, or 39 cents a share, in the year-ago period. The quarterly loss met the FactSet consensus.
Fisker has yet to make a sale. It said Wednesday that its order book “suggests” future gross revenue value of about $1.7 billion.
Delivery of the first Fisker Oceans are “priority one,” Chief Executive Hendrik Fisker said. “We are now into the next-level prototype build phase and progressing through our vehicle testing and certification plan.”
Fisker is working closely with suppliers to “stay on track” and start deliveries by November, he said. “Amid global semiconductor and other supply constraints, we work regularly in collaboration with key partners to identify and mitigate any issues.”
Reservations for the compact SUV topped 30,000 at the end of the quarter, including 1,600 fleet reservations, compared with 18,600 reservations in November, Fisker said.
“The net daily retail reservation rate in 2022 year-to-date has increased more than 400% compared to FY2021 and is on an annualized pace of over 55,000,” the company said.
The reservation count was higher than expected, CFRA analyst Garrett Nelson said. But he said he remains “cautious with a broader EV re-rating occurring and debt issuance being a growing possibility.”
Fisker ended the quarter with cash and equivalents of about $1.2 billion, it said.
The company guided for full-year 2022 operating expenses between $435 million and $500 million, mostly with research and development, and capital expenditures between $280 million and $290 million.
The electric-car company announced Tuesday it was taking reservations for a second car, a compact EV named the Pear.
The reservations are open to retail customers “following strong customer outreach and potential for a near-term order from a large commercial customer,” Fisker said Wednesday.
The five-passenger EV starts at $29,900 and production will start in November.
Foxconn Technology Group
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will be building the Pear in one of the manufacturing deals Fisker inked last year.
Fisker has outsourced car production to keep a tight rein on design and interfaces in a strategy Wall Street has dubbed the “Apple of autos.”
CFRA’s Nelson said that he views the joint-venture business model “favorably,” but competition among EV startups has intensified and Fisker “may struggle to sell EVs at the scale needed to compete with Tesla and incumbent automakers.”
Shares of Fisker have lost nearly 34% in the past 12 months, contrasting with gains of around 14% for the S&P 500 index
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