- It won Automobile Magazine's 2012 car of the year award,
it garnered well over $600 million dollars in start-up
capital and it was heralded as the car that would bury
Tesla, but then it died.
Both with a bang and a whimper.
It's the most over-hyped car in the world.
What turned this green dream into an automotive nightmare?
This is Wheel House, the truth about Fisker.
The Danish-born Henrik Fisker started his career at BMW
in 1989 where he designed the retro-inspired BMW Z8.
This reimagined roadster was praised for it's sleek,
timeless design and it remains a darling among drivers
and collectors alike.
Riding his success at BMW, Fisker joined Ford as the
design director for Aston Martin in 2001.
It was there that he created the designs for the iconic
Aston Martin DB9 and the best-selling Aston Martin
of all time, the V8 Vantage.
So, the guy knows a thing or two about making
bad-ass looking cars.
After almost 20 years in the industry, Fisker decided
he was done designing other people's cars.
It was time to set off on his own,
but the world of luxury vehicles was vast
and starting a company was extremely difficult.
He needed to pick a kind of luxury vehicle
that would justify a new company.
Ever the fan of celebrity, Henrik was watching the Oscars
when it came to him, Leonardo DiCaprio drove up
to the red carpet in a Toyota Prius.
The Titanic star stepping out of small, egg-shaped car
didn't fit right.
Where was the flash, where was the glamour?
Why not create an attractive option for high-end,
environmentally conscious clientele.
Fisker decided he would make a hybrid luxury car
at a premium price.
In 2007, he and business partner Barney Koehler formed
Fisker Automotive, with the goal of putting the cool
into electric cars.
Building an automobile with cutting edge technology,
and wrap it in a pretty package.
Before they hunkered down, however, they accepted a
$875,000 contract with another start-up car company, Tesla.
After his brief stint with them, Henrik felt
more confident about his venture into the EV world.
And having "consultant to Tesla" on his resume also
made it easier for him to get investors.
Quantum Technologies, an alternative energy start-up
teamed with the design guru on his ambitious plans
for Fisker Automotive.
They posted up in Irvine, California to design the car,
but it wouldn't be built there.
Henrik believed that the best people for the job were
Valmet Automotive all the way over in Finland.
- Finland!
- The eco-friendly startup scored big when it was able
to get backing from heavy hitters like Ray Lane,
the former president of software giant Oracle that
bankrolled such companies as Google and Amazon.
Luckily, when Henrik found Ray, he was working as a
senior partner at a powerhouse venture capital firm.
Jackpot! Also, the US government wanted to bolster
green initiatives as well as the economy in the wake
of the 2008 financial crisis.
So the Department of Energy coughed up a loan
that totaled $529 million, a portion of which was
to be used to mass produce the car in the United States.
Even the Prius-loving DiCaprio got on-board as an investor.
It seemed that the hybrid start-up was
destined for greatness.
A year later Fisker Automotive unveiled a flashy, plug-in
hybrid sedan they called the Fisker Karma.
Henrik Fisker labeled it an "electric vehicle
with extended range" or "EVER."
It operates the same way many other
plug-in hybrids do today.
It had a plug-in hybrid drive chain that powered
by electricity until a battery ran out of juice,
then a gasoline engine kicks in to drive the car
and charge the battery.
Peek under the hood and you'd find a 260 horsepower,
GM-supplied, 4-cylinder engine
churning the robust generator.
The Karma was also equipped with a 20 kilowatt an hour
American-made lithium ion battery pack.
Mounted on the rear axle were twin AC motors
delivering 402 horsepower to the differential.
This up-scale driving machine could
go zero to 60 in under 6 seconds.
Not bad for a hybrid.
But what really made the Fisker Karma a cut above
was it's jaw-dropping, stellar appearance.
The incredible body curves on this car were
so smooth you'd think the car gods themselves
formed it from one giant piece of molten metal.
With it's sleek, long hood, shapely flanks,
eye-catching wheel arches, and it's low-slung silhouette
it's obvious the Fisker Karma was designed by a genuine
artist, and I mean that.
The Karma offered the complete package, style, sleekness,
and with a battery and gasoline-powered combo,
zero range anxiety.
All the buzz surrounding the Karma landed
it's designer on the cover of Forbes Magazine,
under the headline "The Next Detroit."
There was also the possibility he'd land in court.
Tesla slapped Fisker with a lawsuit in 2008.
Here's what they claimed: Remember how they brought Henrik
on-board to do design and interior work in 2007?
They say he stole their design ideas for what
would become the Tesla Model S.
Tesla further believed Fisker and his partner accepted
the $875,000 design contract solely so they could get
their hands on confidential design info.
Tesla claimed Fisker had no hybrid technology experience
before working for them.
So where do you think they got all the info
for the motors and batteries?
And once they saw how rad the Karma looked, they were like,
"What you designed for us looks like a hot turd,
what's going on?" That's what Elon Musk sounds like.
Tesla alleged that Fisker sabotaged their design
by intentionally doing shoddy work.
Then, he used the money they paid him
to start a competing company.
As for the outcome, well, later that year Tesla dropped
the lawsuit when an arbitrator's ruling found
no wrongdoing on Fisker's part, but still kinda suspicious.
This legal roadbump didn't put a damper
on the excitement surrounding the Karma.
Eco-minded car enthusiasts couldn't wait
to get their hands on one.
Al Gore put in an early order, Justin Bieber got one
as a gift from Usher, Tyrese owned one,
and Leonardo DiCaprio could be spotted cruising Sunset
Boulevard in the first production model.
Time Magazine put the car on it's 50 Best Inventions list.
Motor Trend named it the Top 10 Future Classics
for it's timeless elements, and it was dubbed
2011's Luxury Car of the Year by Top Gear Magazine.
This car was a big deal.
While Henrik Fisker initially pledged to start production
within 18 months of it's unveiling in 2008, the first
production model wouldn't roll off the assembly line
until 3 years later.
200 Fisker Karmas were delivered to customers in 2011
and an additiona 1600 in 2012.
Unfortunately, the car should've rolled right back
into the factory.
The Karma looked great on the outside,
but on the inside, it was a hot mess.
The reality was that Henrik Fisker was a car designer,
he'd never taken the reins of a company before.
The smelly stench of trouble began with the company's
bad business model.
Their method of outsourcing everything
and a low-headcount approach resulted in a car
riddled with engineering problems.
Not the least of which was poor reliability.
In 2011, Fisker Automotive issued a recall of the
first 239 Karmas because of a coolant leak
and the risk of electrical fires.
The fire part was actually a reality for a few
unlucky Karma owners.
One guy lost a wing of his house, when his Karma
burst into flames in the garage.
That sucks. That's just like time my uncle Russ fried
a turkey on Thanksgiving, RIP Russ.
Sour headlines and late loan payments started piling up.
It was reported that Henrik had accumulated $200 million
dollars in unpaid bills by late 2011.
To conserve cash, Fisker Automotive laid off hundreds
of employees in 2011 and 2012.
All the while, the Armani suit wearing Fisker continued
to take a huge salary and spend lavishly in an
attempt to maintain a shiny appearance
on the company's fastly tarnishing image.
We're talking champagne with flecks of gold
in it, served on a 146-foot yacht
in Monte Carlo kinda lavish.
The announced sticker price of about $80,000
had risen to six-figures by production time.
The production phase experienced delays due to
last minute design changes, and engineering fixes.
What kind of last-minute fixes? Here's just one.
Apparently, Fisker's desire for front-end exhaust
made the Karma too noisy and hurt the car's horsepower.
An obvious fix would be to place the exhaust pipe
in the back, like every car on the face of planet.
The idea came to the engineers one afternoon when
pizza was delivered for lunch.
I'm serious about this.
The engineering team was inspired by the pizza box
to encase the exhaust in a very thin steel box.
The pizza box quick fix solved the concerns
about the sound and made the boss happy, but
to the tune of extra $1 million dollars.
Other minor, but very noticeable issues involved a
ghostly radio that increased volume all on it's own
and a software interface that was difficult to decipher.
It was so slow that some drivers cracked the screen
from pushing too hard to get a response.
Adding to the problem, the company had ordered
somewhere between 50 to 100 million dollars worth
of components that, because of last minute design changes,
wouldn't even be used.
Fisker was burning through the cash and missing
crucial production deadlines, so the government
cut it's funding.
Desperate to keep the money flowing, Henrik Fisker
began selling the Karma at lightning speed
before all the problems had been ironed out.
Plagued with continuing recalls and breakdowns,
the anticipated darling of the car world
was quickly becoming a dud.
- Fiskers don't make noise when they start up,
just so you know.
- The Fisker Karma may have been the only car
in history to be named 2012's Design of the Year
by Automobile Magazine while simultaneously flunking
with consumer reports.
The magazine cited routine problems with the battery,
long recharge times, and repeat visits to the dealer.
A noisy engine, cramped interior, and below-par performance.
In fact, the car died on the test track
and had to be hauled away on a flatbed.
Then, Hurricane Sandy flooded out several hundred
unsold Karma's that were stored
in a New Jersey parking lot.
A bruising cost of about $33 million.
When the insurance company refused to pay, Fisker
had to go to court.
Check your coverage, guys.
Just five years earlier, it seemed that the stars
would be aligning for the Fisker Karma,
but in 2012 it felt like fate was conspiring against us.
The nail in the coffin moment happened when
Massachusets-based A123, Fisker Automotive's
sole battery supplier folded.
With technical glitches and cost overruns continuing,
Fisker Automotive ceased production in November 2012,
a year later they went bankrupt, but the car they
designed lives on.
Making lemonades out of Fisker's lemons, China's
auto parts giant Wanxiang Group bought the doomed
company's assets and what was left of A123 in 2014.
They renamed the organization Karma Automotive,
and moved the factory operation from Finland,
to Southern California.
The new Karma team set up production in Moreno Valley
and their game plan was to resurrect the flawed Karma,
but keep Fisker's gorgeous design.
As Jim Taylor, Karma Automotive's chief marketing officer
said, "They nailed the design, you'd be crazy to change it."
The first order of business for the Karma comeback team
was to get to work finding every flaw with the Karma,
no easy task.
Leading the effort was Karl Jenkins, a Welsh auto engineer
considered the patron saint of successfully handling
turnaround and lost causes.
Along with a 600 member team, Jenkins went section
by section over the old Karma with a fine-toothed comb
to determine what needed fixing and what was fine.
They tagged any problem they could uncover,
down to the dicey-looking hose clamps.
They reworked the airflow through the front of the car
which was an easy fix for an overheating engine
that the original Fisker team had overlooked
because they rushed the car to market.
The team also updated the car with five years of
technical advances, a Herculean effort
that at the end of the day resulted in the rebirth
of the Fisker Karma, now rechristened the Karma Revero.
Near identical to it's predecessor except,
fingers crossed, this one wouldn't burst into flames
or leak engine coolant.
The first production model of the Karma Revero were
delivered to customers in 2017.
You have to give Karma Automotive props,
instead of throwing up their hands in frustration
at the Fisker fiasco, they went mono e mono
with the beast, got their hands dirty,
and fixed literally hundreds of flaws.
Wanxiang rescued the car for the designs.
It looks amazing and is said to have cast a spell
over some Tesla owners as well, who have been
complaining that their vehicle
just isn't interesting anymore.
The car offers a timeless quality and mystical feel
that's as evident today as it was six years ago.
Is the Revero a phoenix risen from the ashes?
Or is the landmark design destined to fail?
Time will tell.
Make sure you hit that yellow subscribe button
right there, if you like electric cars check out
this episode of Science Garage.
The Fisker has a very similar story to the DeLoreans
so check out this episode of Up to Speed.
Follow me on Instagram @nolanjsykes
and follow Donut @donutmedia.
If you want a shirt, go to shop.donut.media,
we have some new merch coming out very soon.
Wear a seatbelt, see you next time.
(chilled hip hop music)