Would Fisker Have Survived If it was MADE IN USA?

Wow.  This is amazing.  Even though insurance likely paid back the lost cars, Fisker was clearly set back years by this catastrophe.  The question I would ask is, how is it possible that an ENTIRE shipment was lost to fire and Hurricane Sandy? Such a small automaker and such a large shipment moving across the ocean at a risky time. Seems like they didn't have a good sense of risk management.

See this article entitled "Sandy Swamped Shipment of More Than 300 Fisker Hybrid Cars" by Yuliya Chernova in the WSJ dated November 6, 2012.

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Fisker Karma

Electric car maker Fisker Automotive lost more than 300 cars when its entire European shipment was flooded last week at a New Jersey port due to Hurricane Sandy, VentureWire has learned.

“[The cars] are completely done,” said Roger Ormisher, spokesman for the Anaheim, Calif.-based company.

The loss adds up to roughly $30 million, since each luxury plug-in hybrid car, called Karma, sells to consumers for more than $100,000. The company is filing claims with insurance and expects to be reimbursed, said Ormisher.

“We don’t see this as having a material impact on our business,” he said.

The incident is the latest setback for the company. It is currently dealing with the bankruptcy of A123 Systems, a supplier of batteries for Fisker’s plug-in hybrid cars, and the company has had two recalls, for defective hose clamps and cooling fans, that affected fewer than 3,000 cars.

As was previously reported, 16 Fisker cars also caught fire at the New Jersey port last week. The company issued a statement Tuesday saying the fire was caused by salt from the seawater that short-circuited a 12-volt standard car battery. The heavy winds from the storm spread the fire to nearby Karmas. There were no explosions, Fisker said.

The company previously had incidents of cars catching fire, one in California related to a cooling fan, and one in Texas for which the cause is still being determined, the company said.

Fisker’s latest flood loss, at Port of Newark in New Jersey, was part of a big wave of damage, as thousands of cars, including those from manufacturers such as Toyota, were flooded.

Read more in Venture Capital Dispatch.