HENRIK FISKER: Well, I've always loved cars, I think
ever since as a small kid I saw a Maserati passing by.
I was in the backseat of my dad's car.
So I've always been crazy about cars.
And I think just as I grew older, I always sort of had a
little bit of the feeling that I wanted to design a car,
having something to do with how it looks, the sculpture,
everything else.
I just always felt the car was something you could have a
very emotional relationship with.
And I think we all kind of feel good about when we see a
good-looking car and we have a pretty clear opinion about
when we don't like a car.
And I think as a designer, you probably take it
a little bit further.
You're going through the details, and you think about
how you could do it.
And that's kind of how it evolved.
JF MUSIAL: So what does Leonardo DiCaprio and Colin
Powell have in common?
They both own this car.
Fisker has actually produced 1,500 Karmas already.
They've gone on sale, but they're
not produced in America.
Though this is an American company, they're actually
built in Finland--
the same company that has actually built things like the
Saab convertible or the Boxster.
HENRIK FISKER: I think one of the cars I always remembered
first was the Maserati Bora, which was a mid-engine car
designed by Giorgetto Giugiarro.
It was just one of my kids' dreams.
And of course, the Lamborghini Countach is a
famous car as well.
The Jaguar E-Type, several Ferraris.
The classical, beautiful sports cars that kind of makes
you get butterflies in the stomach.
When you see them, you kind of get goosebumps.
You just feel like, I gotta have one of these cars one of
these days.
For me, it was really something where I felt like it
must be so amazing to be able to create such beautiful
shapes and forms.
The fact that they have a function, obviously, of taking
people from A to B. But they also go beyond the function.
They become part of people's lives.
They're a part of who we are, who we want to be.
JF MUSIAL: So I've actually driven this car
before in New York City.
Now that we're in LA, though, we can actually drive it on
nice, long, country roads.
From the onset, you get in it, and it feels like a high-end,
luxury flagship.
But when you get into the turns, it actually is quite
stable and smooth.
Keep in mind, this is a heavy car, especially with the
lithium ion batteries and the two-liter motor up front.
It's a big car, but it stays flat.
It feels comfortable.
But most importantly, it's smooth.
HENRIK FISKER: I think most of my inspiration actually comes
from the car industry.
There's maybe the watch industry, could be an example,
where specifically, when you think about precision for the
instruments, I think watches are something that you can
take great inspiration from, because
there's a lot about precision.
It's really beauty coming together with function.
Obviously, seeing the time, and then the
beauty of the watch.
But really, when you come to the shape of a car, a little
bit maybe from the animal kingdom.
There's also a certain element to human proportions and forms
that you can look at.
But in the end of the day, a car is a car.
So I think my inspiration has mostly been just thinking
about the glamorous times, the amazing cars that have been
around, and how we can create a future where we get those
same emotions and the same sense of beauty as we feel
there is with some of the old cars.
How can we carry those into the future and connect--
or reconnect, I would almost say.
Because today, I think a lot of people have almost fallen a
little bit out of love with cars, because we just don't
have as many exciting cars on the road today as
there used to be.
JF MUSIAL: Electric vehicles have always been thought of
being not cool.
Well, I think Fisker has come around to actually making
something that is impressive to the point of revolutionary.
For an American company--
an American company to build something like this, that I
would consider very European, with Henrik Fisker being
Danish, it makes sense.
The style, the materials.
Yes, and I do admit, there are some part bins
elements to this car.
The adjustment for the mirrors, parts bin.
The mirror of the rearview mirror, parts bin.
But you want to know something?
It doesn't matter, because they built a great package
that really transforms the way you can think of a new company
building cars.
HENRIK FISKER: I think the automobile might be the only
product in the world you can actually fall in love with,
that you can just have almost an emotional connection, that
you've just got to have it.
And I think part of it is the shapes of the vehicle.
There is some sort of connection between the human
shapes and a very sexy looking car.
There's no doubt about it.
That sort of attention to the perfection of those shapes,
how the light runs over the car, I think is part of it.
I think it also comes back to the point, just like a human
being, when you see a beautiful human being, you
know beneath that beauty there is a character.
A character that you might want to explore or get to
know, you might get to like, enjoy.
I think the third element of, specifically, the car, it is
probably one of the only products we are still allowed
today which could be kind of dangerous.
It could be very exciting when treated correctly.
But treated wrongly, it can also be very dangerous.
In fact, it could kill you or other people.
So you combine these three things, and it's just an
amazing, exciting product that I think is the most amazing
product in the world.
I couldn't imagine a world without cars.
JF MUSIAL: So driving dynamics.
When you own a car, and when you're going to front over
$100,000 for a car, you want to know how it drives.
Does this car give me pleasure?
Well, no, it is not a GT3.
It is not a 7 Series.
It is not an S Class.
It is not tested at the Nurburgring.
But the features involved with this car
actually are quite good.
HENRIK FISKER: Well, I think after many years in the car
industry, a lot of things went beyond my
expectations or my dreams.
Being able to design the Z8 that went into
a James Bond movie.
Then going to Aston Martin and being able to design two of
their cars.
And just meeting amazing people during that time.
And again, seeing some of these cars go into films, and
being at some amazing events where people you admire own
and buy these cars and come up to you and basically tell you
they would like to be in your footsteps, being able to do
these things.
I think all that kind of made me feel like there must be
something beyond, something further out, maybe something
where I should take the risk to try and see what will be
the next step.
It's a little bit like being in a house, and you crawl up,
and you hit the roof, and you wonder what is outside.
What if I climb up on the roof?
It's a little dangerous, but the view
is going to be amazing.
And that's kind of what I did.
And i think specifically, when it comes to Fisker Automotive,
my inspiration was a little bit selfish.
It was really thinking, how would the world be if we have
to live with just these ugly, boring,
environmentally-friendly cars that was
around five years ago?
There wasn't many, and there was a lot of little concepts
that used to be ugly and slow.
I think the future starts to look really bleak for the
automobile.
So I felt, a little selfishly, that I want to have a cool car
that I can drive in 10, 20 years.
I want my kids to love and fall in love with cars and
drive a cool car.
So it kind of drove me a little bit to sort of say,
hey, what about if we could make a really exciting, very
good looking, environmentally-friendly
vehicle that we can fall in love with?
JF MUSIAL: We haven't even discussed the design because,
well, that's the most obvious.
It's beautiful.
We cannot forget that the same guy that designed this penned
some of the most beautiful cars of the past two decades.
This is what you see.
If you wanted to have this in your driveway, I don't think
anyone would fault you, because this is an American
car that looks beautiful.
HENRIK FISKER: I think it was back in early 2007, something
around that time, that I started to think about drawing
the first sketches of the Karma.
And it really was about creating an uncompromised,
absolutely beautiful, four-door sedan.
If I were going to incorporate environmentally-friendly
themes or areas of the car, I wanted it to be in a way not
just by making it green, painting it green, or by
making it strange looking.
I wanted to do it with elements that
had a certain purpose.
So for instance, the idea came up with putting the entire
roof as a solar panel and designing real cool graphics
that actually would be exciting to take a look at.
But the other thing about the Karma was I wanted to create a
vehicle that had a really beautiful shape, a shape you
were drawn into, but a shape that went way beyond what we
had seen before in a four-door sedan.
JF MUSIAL: It makes perfect sense for this car to be
developed in California.
As an American car company, this is where this car is
going to be sold.
This is a hotbed of innovation.
LA, San Diego, San Francisco, it makes perfect sense.
Now, of course, East Coast markets,
and of course, Houston.
You have to give Henrik Fisker and his team a lot of credit.
They thought this through perfectly.
Why would you go anywhere else?
This car is very American in the sense of, America's about
innovation.
It's about development.
It's about thinking outside the box.
And Henrick did a very good job by doing that.
HENRIK FISKER: The reason we based Fisker Automotive in
California, first of all, Barney Koehler and myself were
living here and we obviously started the company.
Secondly, we also felt that it's really the perfect place
to start a new car company, because if you think about
California, it's a very multicultural area.
It's a place where there's very little brand loyalty when
it comes to cars.
In fact, probably any brands.
Whatever is the coolest, whatever is the newest and the
hippest and the best, is what people go out and buy here.
Whereas, the rest of the world, there seems to be a
little bit more brand loyalty.
Even if some brand makes a car this year or something you
don't necessarily like that much, you may
stick with the brand.
The other point, I think, is when you look at the rest of
the world, I think the rest of the world sees California as a
place where they see a lot of new trends coming from
California.
And they see California as being innovative because of
many other areas of technology that happen here, whether it's
Apple or whatever it is.
So I think people around the world are used to new,
exciting, innovative products coming from California.
So for us, that was another good reason to be here.
JF MUSIAL: Now we're driving on Mulholland Highway right
now, actually one of the best roads in America.
So much fun to drive.
And this car just kind of works.
Yeah, it has a two-liter motor, and it weighs over
4,000 pounds.
But it works.
It makes sense, in a way.
It's fun, it's different, and that's very important.
This car is different.
In LA, the jaded car culture capital of the world, everyone
looks at it.
Everyone asks, what is that thing?
It's a Fisker.
What is a Fisker?
Well, it's the future.
It's the most unique, creative, innovative car on
the market today.
HENRIK FISKER: I think the reason that Fisker Automotive
has success now and will have success is because we're
essentially doing things that nobody else are doing.
And that is we are combining extremely beautiful,
luxurious, four-door cars with the extremely, I would say,
environmentally-friendly aspects of
the automotive industry.
We are doing things that may be too early for a lot of big
car makers to do, such as putting a solar roof on the
car, such as using reclaimed wood inside the car.
And of course, the powertrain.
Being able to drive your daily commute doing 50 miles in
electric or 80 kilometers in electric, and then still being
able to go from Los Angeles to New York.
We've kind of solved what has been the main issue with the
pure electric car.
And that is range anxiety, or basically solve what the car
really is about.
The car is about freedom-- freedom to go wherever you
want whenever you want.
JF MUSIAL: And people are going to look at you as if
you're, well, not a douchebag.
Which, these days, I would buy a car for just that.
There's a lot of history here, even though the car company is
not that old.
Think about that.
This car is changing the game, and it's changing the way we
think of luxury and American cars.
HENRIK FISKER: The future of Fisker is really going to be
about a range of cars.
You cannot be a car company, of course, just with one car
in the long term.
So we need to create a range of cars.
And the Fisker Karma is really our brand icon.
It's what really establishes the brand.
And after the Fisker Karma, we are going to launch a series
of other vehicles being in a lower price class.
We have learned a lot from this car.
We are going to take a lot of cost out of the powertrain.
That enables us to come out with some cars in the future
which are going to be in a lower price class.
We are planning some other cars in even lower price
ranges in the future.
We want to expand globally.
We already have dealerships now all over the world--
Europe, Middle East, and Asia.
So expansion, in terms of sales globally, is very
important for us.
It'll take a few years, but believe me,
we're working on it.
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