Fisker Files For Bankruptcy, Bought By Mystery Investor

It’s been more than 18 months since Fisker Automotive last built a car, and the vultures have been circling for over a year now, waiting for the inevitable to happen. Last week Fisker finally filed for bankruptcy, and was sold for a paltry $25 million to a mysterious investment group that hasn’t revealed what its intentions are just yet.

That means taxpayers were out about $139 million on the Fisker investment, folly which caused private investors even more. In total, around 2,000 Fisker Karmas were built, though not even that many were sold. Bob Lutz is offering customers new and old the option of inserting a supercharged V8 under the hood, though prices for used Fiskers are in the toilet.

The buyer of Fisker is the shadowy Hybrid Tech Holdings LLC., a group that did not announce its intentions or primary investors in a very brief, legalese-laced press release. Last we heard a Hong Kong billionaire was at the top of the list of potential buyers, and before that a German company was interested in restarting Karma production. While some are hopeful that Fisker could make a comeback, and the Karma could be built again, it seems unlikely given that each vehicle lost about $35,000 for the hybrid carmaker. Why would anyone want to restart production of a money-losing vehicles?

Fisker didn’t actually own most of the technology it used in the Karma, which is why a company once valued at more than a billion dollars sold for so little. Beyond the car’s design itself and the Fisker name, neither of which is particularly valuable right now, there just isn’t much included in this sale. We may not even ever know who wound up with the keys to Fisker at the end of the day.

Maybe I’m wrong, and Fisker will rise from the grave again, like Saab has somehow managed to do. But I wouldn’t invest in it, emotionally or financially. Would you?