- Fisker went bankrupt earlier this year, and its assets will be liquidated.
- That includes around 3,000 Ocean EVs sitting in inventory.
- Volkswagen, on the other hand, had other issues in October.
October was a great month for several automakers. General Motors and Hyundai, for instance, saw big gains in registrations. Meanwhile, Ford’s Mustang Mach-E, Rivian’s R1S and Tesla’s Model Y were down double digits.
But while checking out the registration data for all EVs in the United States–you can read more about the bigger picture here–I noticed something peculiar. Toward the bottom of the list, two unlikely names were battling it out, and the winner of this bottom-of-the-barrel competition was surprising.
According to registration data from S&P Mobility Global, Fisker moved more electric vehicles than Volkswagen. As a reminder, Fisker went bankrupt earlier this year and its liquidation plan was approved by a judge in October. Meanwhile, Volkswagen is one of the largest carmakers in the world. So how did we get here?
Let’s look at the numbers first. Fisker had 110 EVs registered in the U.S. in October, while Volkswagen had 92. That’s worse than Fiat’s 135 EV registrations but better than Jeep’s 63. It’s not exactly what we’d call outstanding, but there’s an explanation for all of this.
As I mentioned earlier, Fisker’s liquidation was approved by a judge in October. The bankrupt automaker still had roughly 3,000 unsold Ocean electric crossovers in inventory when the plan was approved, and all of them were scooped up by New York-based American Lease. Before the liquidation plan was approved, these cars were still for sale at a handful of dealers across the country, and some of the cars were priced really low. In other words, people could still buy the Ocean EV, often with very high discounts.
But what about Volkswagen? For such a large company, VW only sells two electric models in the United States–the American-made ID.4 crossover and the German-made ID.Buzz minivan. However, the ID.Buzz only became available in the U.S. in–you guessed it–October, when the configurator went online. That said, Volkswagen only supplied limited quantities to dealers at the beginning.
That leaves the ID.4, which has traditionally been a solid performer. Volkswagen stopped production of the electric crossover at the Chattanooga plant at the end of September, though. It did that because there’s a recall affecting nearly 100,000 ID.4s in the U.S. for faulty electronic door locks that could open while driving–and there’s no fix. Before stopping production, a stop-sale was issued for the ID.4.
So there you have it. A combination of steep discounts for an EV that’s no longer being manufactured due to the company behind it going bankrupt and a manufacturing pause for an otherwise well-known electric crossover.
