Fisker — Henrik Fisker's two electric car companies, 2007 to 2024

Fisker at a glance

Henrik Fisker, the designer behind the name

Henrik Fisker was born on 10 August 1963 in Allerød, Denmark, and graduated in transportation design from the Art Center College of Design in Vevey, Switzerland, in 1989. That year Fisker joined BMW Technik in Munich. The first project was the E1 electric concept car. From 1992 to 1997 Fisker refined the Z07 concept, which became the BMW Z8 roadster. From 1999 to 2001 Fisker ran Designworks, a BMW design studio.

In 2001 Fisker moved to Ford as design director at Aston Martin. There Fisker oversaw the production design of the DB9 and the V8 Vantage. That credit is disputed: former Aston Martin design director Ian Callum has said both cars were largely designed before Fisker arrived. In 2005 Fisker left Ford and set up Fisker Coachbuild in Orange County with Bernhard Koehler. The firm re-bodied existing cars. The Tramonto roadster used a Mercedes-Benz SL 55 AMG base, and 17 were built with the coachbuilder Stola. The Latigo CS was a re-bodied BMW 645Ci coupé.

Fisker Automotive and the Karma, 2007–2014

Fisker Automotive was founded in August 2007 in Anaheim, California, by Henrik Fisker, Bernhard Koehler (as chief operating officer) and Quantum Technologies, which supplied the ideas for the series-hybrid drive. Early investors included Kleiner Perkins and Palo Alto Investors.

The company's only production car, the Karma, was revealed at the 2008 North American International Auto Show in Detroit. It was a large four-door plug-in hybrid with two electric motors at the rear wheels. A 2.0-litre turbocharged GM Ecotec engine, listed at 194 kW (260 hp), worked only as a generator. It started once the 20.1 kWh A123 Systems battery was empty or Sport mode was chosen. The Karma article quotes a combined output of 301 kW (409 PS) and 1,300 Nm. The EPA rated the electric range at 51 km; TÜV testing gave 83 km. The car weighed about 2,400 kg, and the EPA classed it as a subcompact because the cabin was so tight.

In September 2009 the US Department of Energy granted Fisker a conditional loan of US$528.7 million. Production began in July 2011 at Valmet Automotive in Uusikaupunki, Finland. In 2008 Fisker had spoken of 15,000 cars a year; in reality about 2,450 Karmas were built, and just over 2,000 reached customers.

The problems came quickly. In December 2011, 239 cars were recalled over a coolant leak that could cause a battery fire. In August 2012 about 2,400 cars were recalled for a faulty cooling fan. The Department of Energy had already frozen the credit line after Fisker drew US$192 million. A123 Systems went bankrupt in August 2012, and production stopped in November. On 29 October 2012 Hurricane Sandy flooded Port Newark, New Jersey. The storm destroyed a shipment of 338 Karmas meant for Europe, and 16 of them burned.

Henrik Fisker resigned as chairman in March 2013. Fisker Automotive filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on 22 November 2013. After a three-day auction, the court approved the sale of its assets to Wanxiang Group of China on 18 February 2014, for US$149.2 million. Wanxiang turned them into Karma Automotive, which relaunched the car as the Karma Revero. Henrik Fisker kept the Fisker name, logo and trademarks.

Fisker Inc.: a second start, 2016–2022

Henrik Fisker and Geeta Gupta-Fisker founded Fisker Inc. on 3 October 2016 in Los Angeles. Henrik Fisker became chairman and chief executive, and Gupta-Fisker became president and chief financial officer. Earlier that year, in January 2016, Fisker had co-founded VLF Automotive with Gilbert Villarreal and Bob Lutz. VLF built only five Force 1 V10 sports cars.

The new company first talked about batteries. A joint venture with Nanotech Energy on graphene supercapacitors ran from 2016 to July 2017. Patents for solid-state cells followed in November 2017, and a prototype battery appeared at CES in January 2018. The solid-state plans were dropped in 2021.

The car plan took shape in March 2019, when Fisker announced an electric SUV, the Ocean. Instead of building a factory, Fisker hired the contract manufacturer Magna Steyr to assemble it in Graz, Austria. The deal was announced in October 2020 and finalised in June 2021. To raise money, Fisker merged with Spartan Energy Acquisition Corp, a listed shell company backed by Apollo Global Management. The deal was announced on 13 July 2020 and valued Fisker at US$2.9 billion. The shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on 30 October 2020.

The Ocean, 2022–2024

The Ocean made its European debut at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February 2022, and production started at Magna Steyr in Graz in 2022. It came in four versions:

Batteries came from CATL. The Ocean One was a launch edition of about 5,000 cars. Reservations passed 65,000 by February 2023, but more than 40,000 were later cancelled. The first European customer car was handed over in Copenhagen on 5 May 2023, and the first 22 US deliveries followed on 23 June 2023.

Owners soon reported trouble. There were more than 100 cases of loss of power, as well as brake complaints and faulty doors. These led to three NHTSA investigations and several recalls. Fisker also announced models it never built. The Pear city car was planned with Foxconn at Lordstown, Ohio. The Ronin sports car and the Alaska pickup were shown as prototypes on 3 August 2023.

Bankruptcy and what was left, 2024

For 2023 Fisker reported a net loss of more than US$463 million. In March 2024 the company cut 15 per cent of its staff, paused the Pear and stopped Ocean production for six weeks. Talks with a large car maker about a US$400 million investment collapsed on 25 March 2024. The NYSE delisted the shares on 22 April 2024, and the Austrian subsidiary filed for insolvency on 8 May. On 17 June 2024 Fisker Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware.

In July 2024 the court approved the sale of the remaining Oceans to American Lease for US$46.25 million. There were 3,231 of them, and many went into ride-hailing service in New York City. In October 2024 the creditors agreed a settlement, and American Lease agreed to fund software support for the cars. The Pear was cancelled. As with Fisker Automotive ten years earlier, the cars stayed on the road after the company behind them had gone.

The models listed on 1cars are in the Fisker catalogue, and there is a separate page on the Ocean SUV, its range and versions. For electric SUVs that are still on sale, see the best electric SUVs. The most successful electric start-up of the same years is covered in the history of Tesla.

Fisker timeline

Landmark Fisker models

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