Why Did Fisker Automotive Fail?
The Beautiful Car That Caught Fire (and Drowned)
📜 What Happened
Henrik Fisker designed the gorgeous Karma hybrid — and outsourced its soul: battery packs from troubled A123 Systems that recalled and bankrupted mid-production, assembly in Finland, software full of gremlins. Karmas caught fire in garages; Consumer Reports' test car DIED on the test track; and 338 brand-new Karmas drowned in a New Jersey port during Hurricane Sandy — the perfect metaphor. Fisker burned $1.4B without ever controlling its own supply chain.
☠️ The Fatal Mistake
Bet the company on a single fragile battery supplier while spending on design and launch parties — beauty outsourced to a supply chain nobody had secured.
🧠 The Lesson (Free for You)
You can outsource production, never dependency: single-source suppliers of your critical component ARE your company. Audit the chain before the champagne.
📕 The Antidote Book
In 1962, 24-year-old Phil Knight borrowed $50 from his father to chase his 'Crazy Idea' from a Stanford paper: high-quality, low-cost running shoes imported from Japan. Shoe Dog is the unvarnished story of what…
📖 OPEN THE FULL INTERACTIVE BREAKDOWN →Searchable, filterable, free to read — they paid billions; your lesson is free.