Taking stock of the banged-up electric car business

Putting aside Tesla, which might or might not have had a profitable quarter (depending on how you're counting), the picture is pretty bleak. The bad news starts with OC-based Fisker Automotive, which last week laid off most of its workforce and according to the WSJ, is close to filing for bankruptcy. Fisker's troubles are not a big surprise, considering that production came to a halt last summer when the company's battery supplier filed for bankruptcy. Fisker has been trying to find an investor to put still more money into the operation, but no luck so far. The reality is that not many people feel the need to have an electric car, and when there isn't much demand, fledgling industries are pretty much stuck, as I discuss in this week's Business Update on KPCC.

Mark Lacter: Coda Automotive, the L.A.-based company that started out with an impressive list of investors, including former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, has laid off most of its staff, and has been struggling to pay off its suppliers (a bunch of them are in court). It turns out that the company has only sold a few hundred cars, compared with the 10,000 cars that it was planning to sell in its first year of operation. Then there's the Chinese electric-car maker BYD that had set up its U.S. operations in L.A. with all kinds of fanfare. But BYD has also faced various setbacks, and now the focus is on electric buses rather than electric cars. The company did win a contract recently from Long Beach Transit, so we'll see how that goes.

Steve Julian: I imagine investors and supporters had a better start in mind.

Lacter: Way better. President Obama was pushing to have at least a million electric vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015, and so far, just 85,000 have been sold. The biggest challenge could be the traditional internal combustion engine, which has become a lot cleaner and a lot more fuel efficient in recent years. There's also a shortage of electric charging stations on the road, which could be a problem if the vehicle is not a hybrid that can be gas powered as well as battery-powered. And then there's the cost, which is significantly higher than for a non-electric vehicle. Now, the government has been offering rebates, but sooner or later, the prices of those batteries have to become more competitive.