Visitors watch the unveiling of a Nikola Corp. Tre FCEV truck at the IAA Transportation show in Hanover, Germany, on Monday, Sept. 19, 2022. - Photo: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg (Getty Images)
Electric vehicle startup Nikola (NKLA) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Feb. 19, completing the former Wall Street darling’s backslide.
At its 2020 peak, Nikola was valued at $27 billion, had signed a multibillion-dollar agreement with General Motors (GM), and had planned to deliver all-electric and fuel-cell electric semi-truck.
Shortly after it went public in 2020 via a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC), the short-seller firm Hindenburg Research issued a scathing report calling Nikola “an intricate fraud built on dozens of lies.” In 2021, Nikola paid $125 million to settle charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Founder and CEO Trevor Milton was convicted of fraud in 2022 and sentenced to four years in prison the following year. Milton, who resigned after Hindenburg’s report came out, wrote that he saw the bankruptcy filing “from a mile away” and accused company executives of framing “a founder for a crime they didn’t commit” and destroying Nikola’s brand.
“Like other companies in the electric vehicle industry, we have faced various market and macroeconomic factors that have impacted our ability to operate,” Nikola CEO Steve Girsky said in a statement.
Nikola, which plans to sell some assets and eventually exit Chapter 11, joins the ranks of dozens of EV companies that have crashed and burned over the years. Here are some of their names.
Fisker 1.0...and 2.0
Photo: Jay L Clendenin (Getty Images)
After months on life support, Fisker filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last June, in a deja vu moment for founder Henrik Fisker.
Fisker — the man — launched Fisker Automotive during the mid-2000s before filing for bankruptcy in 2013. During that time it was able to launch one of the world’s first production luxury plug-in hybrid EVs. But it also repeatedly missed production deadlines, skipped federal loan payments, and suffered from a series of management issues.
The second-generation Fisker began in 2016 in Manhattan Beach, California, with Fisker and his wife, Geeta Gupta-Fisker, at the helm. It went public in 2020 through a $2.9 billion deal with a SPAC backed by Apollo Global Management (APO).
Fisker’s collapse came after its flagship Ocean electric SUV was slapped with poor reviews and more than 100 complaints filed with U.S. regulators, its founders and board of directors were sued over allegedly hiding information and poor sales, and it missed payments.
In October, a bankruptcy judge approved Fisker’s bankruptcy liquidation plan, allowing the company to sell off its remaining inventory to help repay creditors.
Just over a month ago, Canoo (GOEV) filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Just a few years ago, it was valued at $2.4 billion following its public debut through a SPAC merger — even though it hadn’t even sold a single unit.
Based in Torrance-California, Canoo was founded in 2017 by Stefan Krause and Ulrich Kranz, who had met at Faraday Future (FFIE), another struggling EV company. After Canoo filed for bankruptcy, Faraday founder YT Jia accused Canoo’s founders of stealing concepts and strategies and pushed his firm into “its second major crisis.”
Canoo’s four years as a public firm were marked by investor lawsuits, regulatory fines, and products that were never delivered. Canoo’s Lifestyle Vehicle, a seven-seat passenger van, a commercial van, and a pickup truck were never made.
What did come out was Canoo’s Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle, which resulted in deals with Walmart, the U.S. Postal Service, NASA, and the U.S. Army, among a few others. But those models were more prototypes than finished products.
“We would like to thank the company’s employees for their dedication and hard work. We know that you believed in our company as we did. We are truly disappointed that things turned out as they did,” CEO Tony Aquila wrote last month.
Coda Automotive
Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg (Getty Images)
Coda Automotive was launched in 2009 and raised more than $300 million in private funds before it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2013.
In that time, it managed to sell just 117 of its $37,250 all-electric sedans. Roughly 150 additional units were left unsold, although some were later available to buy from Mullen Automotive, which was created as a successor to Coda and Mullen Motor Cars. In 2014, automotive website Jalopnik reported that those units had slightly altered logos and improved batteries but were otherwise the same vehicles that had left consumers wanting.
Anderson, Indiana-based Bright Automotive in 2008 was spun out of the energy consulting firm Rocky Mountain Institute, adding General Motors’ John Waters as CEO. By the end of that year, it had raised $17 million and planned to begin manufacturing as many as 30,000 cars in its first year — as long as it got more funding.
Bright had applied for a Department of Energy loan intended to promote auto battery manufacturing under a program authorized in 2007. Similar loans had been used to save Tesla from failure in 2010 and aid Ford Motor Co. (F) in 2009.
But Bright couldn’t hold out, with then-CEO Reuben Munger and COO Mike Donoughe citing delays on their application for the $314 million Energy Department loan as the reason behind the company’s shuttering, CNN reported in 2012. At the time, Bright had developed a prototype plug-in hybrid van, but manufacturing hadn’t yet begun. A “Bright Idea” concept car resurfaced when a YouTuber purchased it for $1,500 in 2024.
British electric bus maker Arrival entered administration in February 2024, shortly after it was taken off the Nasdaq and failed to file its 2022 annual report on time. The company had been valued at $13 billion when it was listed a few years earlier, with backers like Hyundai Motor Co. (HYMTF) and BlackRock (BLK).
Arrival was founded in 2015 by Russian businessman and former Kremlin official Denis Sverdlov, with a headquarters in London. In the years before its public launch, the company notched deals to provide United Parcel Service (UPS) and Royal Mail with its electric vans as part of separate trials.
Despite claiming it would revolutionize the production of EVs, Arrival never produced any commercial vehicles at scale. It also restructured at least three times over its lifetime, laying off staff each time.
In late 2020, the company established a headquarters in North Carolina, later pivoting to focus more on the U.S. market as Former President Joe Biden’s administration invested heavily in clean energy. However, it continued to burn through cash at an unsustainable rate, leading to its failure.
In March 2024, TechCrunch reported that Arrival had sold some of its assets to Canoo, which had recently filed for bankruptcy protection.
Sono Motors
Photo: Christof Stache/AFP (Getty Images)
Electric car startup Sono Motors went public in November 2022, six years after it was founded in Germany.
But Sono, after years of financial issues, killed off its long-awaited electric car program just a few months later. The $25,000, five-seater Sion EV, its main product, had dragged on its budget, according to TechCrunch. It had received more than 44,000 pre-orders for the car, which was expected to enter production in 2023 and launch the following year.
Instead of working on the Sion, the company shifted to a business focused on selling technology like solar panels to commercial customers.
But, in May, it filed for insolvency. A court in Munich later approved its restructuring plan and a deal with the hedge fund Yorkville Advisors Global, with the company turning its focus toward the “Solar Bus Kit” and other solar tech.
Electric Last Mile Solutions (ELMS) went public through a SPAC in 2021, looking to sell battery-powered commercial vans, amid a wave of similar deals that took EV companies public. It became the first of those companies to fail when it filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection less than a year later, citing executive departures and a regulatory investigation that made it “extremely challenging” to raise funds.
The firm’s co-founders, Jason Luo and James Taylor, resigned over misconduct allegations in 2022. A Delaware judge in January ruled in favor of allowing a case challenging the deal that allowed ELMS to become a public company to move forward, Bloomberg Law reported.
Proterra
Photo: Joe Raedle (Getty Images)
Proterra filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, almost two decades after it was founded. The Burlingame, California-based company designed and manufactured electric buses and charging systems for heavy-duty vehicles.
Although Proterra had solid financial backing, including cash raised from high-profile backers like Daimler (MBGAF), actually delivering its vehicles was a costly endeavor. Buses are often customized to match the buyer and take a long time to eventually get delivered and paid for. The company was also trying to scale multiple facets of its business and was hit with supply chain constraints that took a toll.
Proterra’s battery business was later purchased by Volvo in late 2023, while its transit bus business was bought up by what is now called PhoenixEV, according to FreightWaves. Its infrastructure business is now run by Anthelion Capital.
Lordstown Motors
Image: Dustin Franz/Bloomberg (Getty Images)
Lordstown Motors was founded in 2018 by Steve Burns, the former CEO of a small commercial vehicle maker named Workhorse Group (WKHS), who saw an opportunity when General Motors needed to sell its Lordstown, Ohio, manufacturing plant.
The automaker began negotiating with Burns under pressure from President Trump, who promoted the deal before Burns had even secured financing or named the new company. The resulting company, Lordstown Motors, aimed to sell a truck armed with electric motors on each wheel hub but never seemed to run out of problems.
In 2021, short-seller Hindenburg Research accused Burns and Lordstown of exaggerating how many orders it had received for the truck, which itself ran into issues a myriad of issues. During the last three months of 2022, the year production began, just 31 trucks were built. Only two trucks were delivered to customers the following quarter.
Lordstown filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June 2023 but re-emerged in March 2024 under a new name: Nu Ride Inc. and seeking “potential business combinations.” Its latest quarterly report shows $58,251 in total assets and $15,247 in total liabilities.
The only announcements the company has outside of ownership and quarterly reports are related to its lawsuit against Foxconn, a company best known for making Apple’s (AAPL) iPhones. Lordstown has accused Foxconn of misleading it about plans to collaborate on a line of EVs.
