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Fisker Karma
- Thread starter vfx
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- Electric Vehicles fail Fisker karma
Again I say Fisker got the loan because, after Tesla, who else?
Remember: DOE rejected most of the electric car startups that wanted loans - GigaOm Tech News and Analysis
Were any of these less of a risk or more worthy than Fisker?
Remember: DOE rejected most of the electric car startups that wanted loans - GigaOm Tech News and Analysis
Were any of these less of a risk or more worthy than Fisker?
rolosrevenge
Dr. EVS
The only argument I have against Fisker getting the loan was that they were pretty clear from the start that they weren't developing any new tech, but merely packaging it. However, you're right that there really weren't any other choices and Fisker always was the 2nd strongest EV startup.
Part of the problem with giving government money at times: "well we have to spend it, find somewhere to dump the money." IMO, if there wasn't a good candidate then don't spend the <bleep/> money. Last I checked we are very in the red.
I don't believe we are even close to being in the red on the advanced vehicle fund.
First, when congress created the program, they set aside 7.5 Billion for losses because they knew investing in cutting edge tech was very risky.
Two, the government doesn't spend a dime unless a company defaults on its loan.
Third, the government makes interest on the loans.
I don't know how much interest the loans have brought in so far. 9 Billion was loaned out. 175 Million has been lost from Fisker. That is about 2% of the outstanding loans and barely scratches the 7.5 Billion appropriated for the program.
gg_got_a_tesla
Model S: VIN 65513, Model 3: VIN 1913
Agree with Zythryn. It's easy enough to club all of Govt. spending into one big bucket and protest that it's deep in the red. The ATVM program by itself has surely done well overall with Ford and Nissan, the biggest recipients, paying their dues on time.
Had it not been for the Govt. to get into this business of jumpstarting such tech, we'd all not be driving the wonderful car that we are (despite Elon Musk giving the credit to Daimler primarily - I, for one, put my deposit down for the Model S right after the loan was granted). Private investors tend to be too shortsighted to have such vision. Agreed that there's loads of wasteful spending elsewhere but, the ATVM program has done well overall; it's indeed unfortunate that the adverse political climate throttled the loan-giving process to some other potential recipients who could have survived with that help.
Had it not been for the Govt. to get into this business of jumpstarting such tech, we'd all not be driving the wonderful car that we are (despite Elon Musk giving the credit to Daimler primarily - I, for one, put my deposit down for the Model S right after the loan was granted). Private investors tend to be too shortsighted to have such vision. Agreed that there's loads of wasteful spending elsewhere but, the ATVM program has done well overall; it's indeed unfortunate that the adverse political climate throttled the loan-giving process to some other potential recipients who could have survived with that help.
I wasn't speaking with this qualifier in my red comment.
When you're in the red, everything is on the table. If it's not, then bankruptcy is the likely outcome. For governments, bankruptcy is a very ugly thing.
anticitizen13.7
Not posting at TMC after 9/17/2018
I followed Aptera through most of their life and death. The concept was spectacular and worthy of getting the funds. The problem came from weak management that, if they had gotten the funds, would have squandered them. The management, under Paul Wilbur, lost sight of what the vehicle was all about. There would still be a small market for such a vehicle even today. The Aptera was the only one on the list worthy of consideration with about 10 prototypes. Coda didn't have enough American content to deserve funds.
For me, I'm glad Fisker got the funds and I'm very sorry they failed. They deserved the opportunity to succeed. They had a bad run of luck.
And don't forget that the ATVM program that gave Tesla and Fisker their loans was a roundabout way to prevent Ford from filing for bankruptcy like GM. That's why they got the bulk of the funds at $5.9 billion compared to Teslas miniscule $465 million.
gg_got_a_tesla
Model S: VIN 65513, Model 3: VIN 1913
jeff_adams
Member
So Bob's going to drop the baddest engine he can fit in there. Will it handle okay? Will the brakes work well enough? I can see rockstars wrapping these things around power poles. Hopefully the Karmas can handle the insane speeds they will be capable of.
Matthew049
Member
cool!!! it's about flippin time. if they'd done that in the first place they'd probably still be around. hopefully they can improve the interior too. I already like what they've done w the front end. major improvement..
And now it gets even more interesting:
Henrik Fisker joins Hong Kong tycoon to salvage Fisker
I must say, though, that I can't really see much future. The brand has taken too big a hit in my opinion to ever be viable again.
Henrik Fisker joins Hong Kong tycoon to salvage Fisker
I must say, though, that I can't really see much future. The brand has taken too big a hit in my opinion to ever be viable again.
dennis
Model S Plaid
The most likely play IMO is that Lutz is after the "hard assets" - unsold cars and spare parts rumored to be warehoused somewhere in Europe that are needed to produce Destinos. Co-bidder Wanxiang will take the 80-90% completed engineering for the Atlantic and build it in China for the home market. Unanswered questions in this scenario:
1) Will Lutz set up a parts and service business for the 2000 Karmas on the road that are potential Destino retrofits or donor cars? This could be a profitable business for VL while they are ramping up Destino sales, and they should be getting all of those hard assets for pennies on the dollar. If not, will some other entity step in to provide the parts/service backstop and buy parts inventory from VL? This is the key question for current Karma owners.
2) If Wanxiang produces the Atlantic in/for China, will they ever export it to the U.S. or Europe?
I'm personally rooting for VL/Wanxiang to succeed with their bid vs. Henrik/Richard Li. I've already experienced one incarnation of Fisker Automotive run by Henrik and it was expensive.
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The fundamental reason for the failure of Fisker Automotive is that it was led by and populated by executives from big car companies with no startup experience. Henrik had led a design studio, but had never managed a product line much less a car company. This led to many bad decisions that sunk the company:
1) Ridiculously optimistic forecast of 15,000 first year sales of a new $100K car from a new company in a new unproven market.
2) Purchasing inventory against that optimistic forecast and tying up hundreds of millions of $$ of expensive cash, since they had no bank credit available.
3) Delivering the first cars before that were thoroughly tested, resulting in unhappy early customers.
4) Not understanding that a startup must make the first customers successful or there will be no follow on customers. Fisker believed that end customer handholding was the responsibility of the dealers, who were not equipped to diagnose or fix the quality issues that existed in the first cars.
5) Following the big car company marketing strategy of using advertising (WSJ, Vanity Fair) to create brand awareness. Virtually ignoring guerrilla marketing via the Internet and leveraging word-of-mouth from the happy customers who emerged 6 months later when they got all of the bugs out of the product.
Yes, they had some bad luck with the 2 fires, the bad battery in the CR car and Hurricane Sandy. But they were already set up for failure with the company DNA the big auto company guys created. You would have thought that the venture guys were have recognized this as one of the greatest risks to FA's success and given them guidance on how you run a startup company vs. a big car company division. Oh well...
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bonnie
I play a nice person on twitter.
No one has talked about one glaring difference between Tesla and Fisker ... vision. Vision that permeates throughout the culture of the company. As far as I know, Henrik's vision was to make a sexy car (don't need to go into my negative reaction to it the fist time I saw it). It's all about design. But when you read Elon's blog from 5 years ago, there was a vision for what Tesla would become. Every employee I've talked with at Tesla shares that vision - shuttle bus driver, sales person, shop floor, marketing. They are all on board.
If you've ever worked for a startup, you know what a difference it makes when every single employee is pulling together towards a common goal. I know Tesla has that in their corner ... did Fisker?
If you've ever worked for a startup, you know what a difference it makes when every single employee is pulling together towards a common goal. I know Tesla has that in their corner ... did Fisker?
This is really the big one, which led to many of the subsequent bad decisions. Drinking this Kool-Ade directly led A123 into bankruptcy.
I was always very skeptical of this number. If the car was a knock-it-out-of-the-park success, like the Model S, then these numbers were possible. There were too many compromises on the engineering for that to happen. I was expecting sales similar to the Roadster.
+1!
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