As the company implodes, news of a saving grace emerges

News of Fisker going out of business, even as the company is producing and delivering cars, looms on the horizon.

It started off like so many other IPOs, a big bang at first and then settling down, where the stock opened at $15 a share, then climbed up to $18 at one point. Then it begins settling back down to $16 - 17 a share. Then Bank of America came out and said that stock should go up to $26. At that point, I bought it. Then, news began coming out that Fisker was having production issues, they had to reduce their projection of cars to be delivered by Q2 '24. Then news of owner reports after initial deliveries started, a trickling out that the cars were not working as expected. The owners were not happy, and therefore, the investors were not happy. At first, the stock began to tumble, then it began to plummet. By the time the stock was down to $7 a share, news of brake issues started coming out. The stock began to nosedive even further. Then the nail in the coffin came out in the form of NHTSA issuing a recall over the brakes. The stock plummeted to less than $2 a share, and when the dust cleared, news came out that Fisker would be filing bankruptcy, and the dream was over.

That was just about the time I saw my first Fisker. One of the early adopters. It was at the Westfield Shopping Center in Culver City at the Electrify America charging station. From the moment I glanced at that shape, it caught my eye and my heart. It just looks so cool. I mean it looks like every other SUV out there, the classic x-box shape, but there was just something about it that just looked badass, and I knew I had to have one. The curves of the car, the wide aggressive stance with the flared fenders, it was just awesome!

Cash flow is king!

Christopher "Kit" Menkin, American Leasing

The only problem: How would I get one? I thought, “Oh well, it’s over now.” Then reports started coming out that a company called American Leasing was buying up the Fiskers for $15K. Hmmm, that's interesting I thought. If I could get in touch with those of American Leasing company, maybe I could make an offer to purchase the cars from the inventory and somehow managed to get my hands on a Fisker. I figured at that point that if they were buying them for $15k, they would probably be for sale for $20 to $25k at some point. Problem was, I had no idea how I could actually find one, let alone find this company called American leasing. Apparently, I hadn't heard of Google at that point.

I had no idea who or what American Leasing was. But they were in the news as the opportunity to purchase a Fisker Ocean One. It seems they were purchasing all Fisker oceans in the US, which at the time would be about 4000 units or so. I guess they would then act as a clearinghouse to sell the cars to other interested parties. The only problem, searching for American leasing on the Internet turned up pretty much nothing. Other than news stories that they were buying, there was a website listed as American Leasing, that looked like it was created in 1995. Was this the saving grace that I was looking for? Is this the company that I could buy my Fisker ocean 1 from and live the dream of driving 360 electrified miles on a single charge? It remained to be seen, and as everything in big business, I had no idea what was going on behind the scenes. American Leasing would be just part of the solution to my problem, but there was another player that would make my dreams come true: CarGurus!