Sean O'Kane, Author at TechCrunch

The fight over Fisker’s assets is already heating up

Sean O'Kane — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 20:40:03 +0000

Fisker is just a few days into its Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and the fight over its assets is already charged, with one lawyer claiming the startup has been liquidating assets “outside the court’s supervision.” At issue is the relationship between Fisker and its largest secured lender, Heights Capital Management, an affiliate of financial services company […]

Fisker faced financial distress as early as last August

Sean O'Kane — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 17:37:14 +0000

Fisker was facing “potential financial distress” as early as last August, according to a new filing in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding, which the EV startup initiated earlier this week. The admission provides a clearer picture of Fisker’s troubles in 2023 as it struggled to ramp up deliveries of its flagship Ocean SUV, despite CEO […]

Fisker failed because it wasn’t ready to be a car company

Sean O'Kane — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 22:02:37 +0000

Two years ago, an employee at Fisker Inc. told me that the most pressing concern inside the EV startup was not whether its Ocean SUV would get built. Fisker was outsourcing the manufacturing of its first EV to highly respected automotive supplier Magna, after all. The startup’s November 2022 start-of-production target was aggressive, but not […]

EV startup Fisker files for bankruptcy

Kirsten Korosec, Sean O'Kane — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 08:06:36 +0000

Fisker Group Inc., the EV startup founded by famed designer Henrik Fisker, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection — a capstone to months of problems with its Ocean SUV that included recalls and dozens of lemon law lawsuits. The California-based company, which filed for bankruptcy in Delaware District Court, had been seeking a deal with another […]

Tesla shareholders vote yes again to approve Elon Musk’s $56B pay plan

Rebecca Bellan, Sean O'Kane — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 21:30:06 +0000

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has secured enough shareholder votes to have his 2018 stock option compensation package approved. Shareholders also approved the company’s decision to re-incorporate Tesla in Texas, moving it away from the state where Musk’s pay package was struck down: Delaware. Shareholders present at the company’s annual meeting Thursday, held at Tesla’s Texas […]

Tesla shareholders sue Musk for starting competing AI company

Rebecca Bellan, Sean O'Kane — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 18:44:09 +0000

Tesla shareholders are suing CEO Elon Musk and members of the automaker’s board of directors over Musk’s decision to start xAI, which they say is a competing AI company, and then divert talent and resources from Tesla to the new startup. The lawsuit is one of the most direct challenges to Musk’s decision to start […]

Tesla and its fans waged an unprecedented battle over Elon Musk’s $56B pay package

Sean O'Kane — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 17:16:10 +0000

It's all part of an effort to say that, this time, when the shareholders vote to approve his monster $56 billion compensation package, they were fully informed.

Ahead of Tesla’s big shareholder vote, let’s re-read the judge’s opinion that got us here

Sean O'Kane — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 19:22:00 +0000

There has been a silly amount of drama in the run-up to Tesla‘s annual shareholder meeting on Thursday. The company is set to hold a vote on “re-ratifying” the $56 billion compensation package awarded to Elon Musk in 2018, which was struck down by a Delaware Chancery Court judge earlier this year. It will also […]

Ford’s secretive, low-cost EV team is growing with talent from Rivian, Tesla and Apple

Sean O'Kane — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 18:38:00 +0000

A TechCrunch review of LinkedIn data found that Ford has built this team up to around 300 employees over the last year.

Fisker’s troubled Ocean SUV gets its first recall

Sean O'Kane — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 10:25:33 +0000

Fisker is issuing the first recall for its all-electric Ocean SUV because of problems with the warning lights, according to new information published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The safety agency says that the Fisker Ocean’s instrument panel displays the brake, park and antilock brake system warning lights in the wrong font […]

Rivian’s path to survival is now remarkably clear

Sean O'Kane — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 20:13:12 +0000

Rivian needs to sell its new revamped vehicles at a profit in order to sustain itself long enough to get to the cheaper mass market R2 SUV on the road.

After raising $100M, AI fintech LoanSnap is being sued, fined, evicted

Dominic-Madori Davis, Sean O'Kane — Mon, 03 Jun 2024 18:21:13 +0000

The company has been sued by at least seven creditors, including Wells Fargo.

Inside EV startup Fisker’s collapse: how the company crumbled under its founders’ whims

Sean O'Kane — Fri, 31 May 2024 21:57:52 +0000

Update: Fisker has since filed for bankruptcy, after last-ditch efforts to rescue the company failed. An autonomous pod. A solid-state battery-powered sports car. An electric pickup truck. A convertible grand tourer EV with up to 600 miles of range. A “fully connected mobility device” for young urban innovators to be built by Foxconn and priced […]

Fisker cuts hundreds of workers in bid to keep EV startup alive

Sean O'Kane — Wed, 29 May 2024 22:17:19 +0000

Struggling EV startup Fisker has laid off hundreds of employees in a bid to stay alive, as it continues to search for funding, a buyout or prepare for bankruptcy. Workers suspected layoffs were coming when the company directed everyone to work from home on Wednesday — an out-of-character directive, according to multiple current and former […]

Lucid Motors slashes 400 jobs ahead of crucial SUV launch

Sean O'Kane — Fri, 24 May 2024 12:19:39 +0000

Lucid Motors is laying off about 400 employees, or roughly 6% of its workforce, as part of a restructuring ahead of the launch of its first electric SUV later this year. The company said in a regulatory filing on Friday morning that it expects to complete the restructuring by the end of the third quarter […]

VinFast crash that killed family of four now under federal investigation

Sean O'Kane — Mon, 20 May 2024 21:02:14 +0000

The top vehicle safety regulator in the U.S. has launched a formal probe into an April crash involving the all-electric VinFast VF8 SUV that claimed the lives of a family of four, TechCrunch has learned. The crash happened in Pleasanton, California at about 9 p.m. on April 24. Police told local news outlets at the […]

Waymo’s robotaxis under investigation after crashes and traffic mishaps

Sean O'Kane — Tue, 14 May 2024 11:00:55 +0000

The company's autonomous vehicles have had a number of misadventures lately, involving driving into construction sites.

Fisker Ocean faces fourth federal safety probe

Sean O'Kane — Fri, 10 May 2024 13:05:09 +0000

The U.S.' NHTSA has opened a fourth investigation into the Fisker Ocean SUV, spurred by multiple claims of "inadvertent Automatic Emergency Braking."

Tesla is Luminar’s largest lidar customer

Sean O'Kane — Tue, 07 May 2024 21:51:00 +0000

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that lidar sensors are a “crutch” for autonomous vehicles. But his company has bought so many from Luminar that Tesla is now the lidar maker’s top customer. Tesla accounted for “more than 10%” of Luminar’s revenue in the first quarter of 2024, or a little more than $2 million, […]

Rivian loses $1.45B as cost-cutting measures continue

Sean O'Kane, Kirsten Korosec — Tue, 07 May 2024 20:17:00 +0000

Rivian lost $1.45 billion in the first quarter, showing that its recent company-wide cost-cutting measures have a ways to go before it can approach profitability. The EV-maker brought in $1.2 billion in revenue in the period, coming in just under its record haul from the prior quarter, according to its first-quarter earnings report that was […]