Good morning! It’s Monday June 24, 2024, and it’s The morning shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, all in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know.
1st gear: Fisker begins selling its assets
Electric car manufacturer Fisker prepares to conclude after filing for bankruptcy last week. This also comes afterward apparently everything went wrong for the cursed car manufacturer. Today, after hoping for a new injection of funds, the company is preparing to sell everything as liquidation approaches.
Fisker has a stock of more than 4,000 Ocean electric SUVs that it will now attempt to sell through a liquidation sale, reports Automotive News. The automaker’s remaining electric vehicle inventory and other assets will be sold in an effort to recoup the nearly $850 million Fisker owes to various bondholders. As Automotive News reports:
Fisker filed for bankruptcy protection in Delaware on June 17 after spending money trying to speed up production of its struggling Ocean crossovers. The company initially said it would seek additional financing and continue its “scaled-down operations,” but Fisker’s attorney, Brian Resnick, said at the hearing in Wilmington, Del., that the company “does not does not currently anticipate being able to obtain financing.
Resnick told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Thomas Horan that the company plans to liquidate its assets and has reached a tentative agreement with a single buyer for all of its 4,300 vehicles.
The California-based company, founded by automobile designer Henrik Fisker, has never been profitable, with 2023 revenue of about $273 million and a net loss of $940 million. It is the second automaker controlled by Henrik Fisker to go bankrupt.
The sale of the remaining stock of Fisker vehicles is expected to bring in a “fraction” of the amount that the company owes various creditors. In fact, if the cars were to be sold at their final retail price of around $25,000, the sale would only represent about one-eighth of the $850 million Fisker owes.
There were rumors that Fisker had managed to find an automaker to partner with in order to save yourself and your customers. However, Automotive News adds that a deal with Nissan fell through in March, ultimately leading to last week’s bankruptcy.
2nd gear: Prosecutors recommend criminal charges against Boeing
If there’s any company that has a worse 2024 than Fisker, it’s probably Boeing. The American aircraft manufacturer is hit by scandal after scandal like his 737 Max plane crashed through the sky, quality control problems were discovered at its factories, and the federal government initiated further investigations into its other planes. Today, the Justice Department was encouraged to file criminal charges against the company.
According to a Reuters report, U.S. prosecutors are recommending that top Justice Department officials file charges after investigators found the company violated an agreement over two fatal crashes involving its 737 Max planes. As Reuters reports:
In May, officials determined the company violated a 2021 agreement that shielded Boeing from a criminal charge of conspiracy to commit fraud stemming from two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 involving the 737 MAX jet.
As part of the 2021 settlement, the Justice Department agreed not to prosecute Boeing over allegations that it defrauded the Federal Aviation Administration, provided the company reviews its compliance practices and submits reports regular. Boeing also agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle the investigation.
Boeing declined to comment. He previously said he “honored the terms” of the 2021 settlement, which had a duration of three years and is known as a deferred prosecution agreement. Boeing told the Justice Department it disagreed with its determination that the company violated the agreement, Reuters reported this month.
Neither side has commented on the recommendation so far. However, Reuters adds that it understands Boeing and the Justice Department are working on a resolution. That means we’re all looking forward to the result of this hearingthe conclusions of a investigation into the 787 Dreamliner and another investigation into quality control at the aircraft manufacturer.
3rd gear: American resellers are finally getting their computers back
There was a rare moment last week when we had to feel a hint of concern for American car dealers after they were hit by a computer outage that prevented them from selling cars or suggest repairs. The outage was caused by a cyberattack on service provider CDK Global and left many dealerships without IT facilities for several days.
Now, more than five days after the initial attack, the computers have been breached. at American dealers, it seems like things are finally getting back to normal. However, Automotive News reports that disruptions could continue for a few more days. As the site explains:
CDK Global, in a note to customers, for the first time called the crippling cyberattacks that began June 19 a ransom operation and told dealers that the process of restoring its systems was underway.
“We anticipate the restoration process will take several days and not weeks for major applications and ask for your continued support as we bring systems back online,” the company’s June 22 update said.
A subsequent note from CDK to customers at noon on June 23 reiterated the timeline and indicated that restoration was continuing.
A group of hackers claimed responsibility for the attack, with Bloomberg reports that they demanded tens of millions of dollars to undo their work. CDK planned to pay the ransom, the site reported.
4th gear: electric vehicle sales finally eat into oil demand
Let’s end The Morning Shift with a hint of good news, because it seems that the rise in sales of electric vehicles finally has an impact on global oil demand. According to a new report, as electric vehicle sales continued to rise, global oil demand has begun to stabilize. This is not an overall drop in demand, but it East a welcome slowdown in global oil use.
According to a report from Canary Media, stabilization means that by the end of this decade, oil demand will have peaked and is expected to begin to decline. According to the site, this is a result of the rise of electric vehicles and clean energy technologies. By Canarian media:
In advanced economies, oil demand has been declining for decades, but it continues to rise in China and India. As a result, the IEA predicts that demand for fossil fuels, which contribute to global warming, will increase, albeit slowly, until 2030.
According to the IEA, this plateau is expected to occur for two reasons: the growing adoption of electric vehicles globally and the implementation of higher efficiency standards for gasoline cars.
Spurred by rapid adoption in China, electric vehicle sales could reach around 17 million this year, or one in five cars sold globally, according to the IEA’s “Global Electric Vehicle Outlook 2024.” But by 2030, this situation is set to change radically; Electric vehicles could account for half of all car sales worldwide. While growth in the U.S. electric vehicle market is fragile, sales of hybrids are booming – and the report predicts that net-zero emissions goals, policy incentives and lower EV prices will help to the recovery of sales in the years to come.
In the years to come, strict emissions rules set to come into force around the world, which will drive the adoption of electric cars and other clean transportation options. In turn, this will further reduce global oil demand.
However, Canary points out that oil consumption is unlikely to fall enough to meet emissions. targets set in the Paris climate agreement. For this to happen, global oil consumption must decline by 75% by 2050.