Electric vehicle startup Fisker said Wednesday it is on track to begin production of its first model, the Ocean SUV, later this month as planned — and that it now has more than 62,000 reservations for the vehicle, up from over 56,000 as of early August.
CEO Henrik Fisker told CNBC the company plans to manufacture 42,400 Oceans by the end of next year. The Ocean will be built in Austria by a unit of Magna International, with production ramping up in four phases to allow Fisker's suppliers to scale their manufacturing in line with Magna's.
The majority of those vehicles will be built in the second half of 2023, Fisker said.
Fisker said that his team is exploring the idea of moving production of the Ocean to the U.S. before 2025, but as of now has no firm plans to do so.
The automaker reported a net loss of $149.3 million for the third quarter, or 49 cents per share, versus a loss of $109.8 million or 37 cents per share in the year-earlier period. It had $824.7 million in cash remaining as of Sept. 30, including about $116 million raised from an "at-the-market" stock offering announced earlier this year.
Fisker said that work on its second model, a low-cost EV called the Pear, is progressing ahead of schedule.
The company said it now has over 5,000 reservations for the Pear, which will be built by Foxconn Technology Group in the former Lordstown Motors factory in Ohio, starting in 2024.