Fisker EMotion To Be Unveiled At CES 2018

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The Fisker EMotion will be unveiled by Henrik Fisker at the upcoming CES 2018 event in January, according to recent reports. The unveiling at CES 2018 will include a focus on associated tech, including Fisker’s new battery tech.

The Verge provides more: “The EMotion is also expected to feature LIDAR that will allow for Level 4 autonomous driving capabilities, though Fisker says it’s still ‘under development’ and therefore unclear if it will launch in 2019 with the rest of the car. Still, the EMotion sounds to be primed to compete with autonomous claims from numerous companies.

“It’s Tesla’s line of sedans that Fisker is clearly mirroring, as the first EMotion is expected to offer Model S levels of performance, but with a Model S-like price of $129,000. A less expensive model is in the works, according to The Street, for 202,0 and Fisker is clearly aiming for the Model 3 with the goal of a $34,000 starting price.”

As we reported previously, plans are for an EMotion launch in 2019. Despite the distance from now, reservations are now being taken … and they aren’t cheap, at $2,000 a piece. Two or so years isn’t exactly a short period of time to leave $2,000 in someone else’s hands, especially when that company doesn’t have a track record. I suppose, though, that since it worked for Tesla it may as well work for him. Considering that some of those who put down reservations for the Tesla Model 3 (particularly those in right-hand drive markets) are now feeling burned, though, I’m curious to find out how many end up putting down reservations for the Fisker EMotion.

If you want to read a highly critical and cynical take on Fisker’s new company and first product, here’s a comment from underneath the article on The Verge:

Let us recount the story so far as reported in the media:

Claim: We will have supercapitor graphene batteries that recharge in nine minutes and a range of 400 miles made by “Fisker Nanotech” and we have patents for the batteries and for a machine that makes the graphene for 10% of the current price.

Reality: No patents existed, and the graphene machine was a DVD player, as reported in 2015 in articles about the two academic researchers involved. Their graphene supercapacitor existed, as basically a high school science fair level project. The head of their “battery division” had a recent fraud conviction for misleading investors and selling a fake Picasso, and claimed to also be CEO/Founder/Chairman of some other companies…two with new cures for cancer, one with a new metal alloy twice as strong as steel, and one with thirty feature films “in development.”

Claim: We are already producing the batteries at an undisclosed battery factory in Northern California (was it in November, December?).

Reality: A complete lie, no factory was doing anything.

Claim: We are still working on graphene supercapacitors, but will use batteries from LG Chem.

Reality: There never was a “we” at all, but odd how “they” are still working on these batteries after reporting that they had ended their relationship with Fisker Nanotech…so who is working on these batteries?

Claim: We are going to buy a factory, we are looking at potential locations now, and also we are contracting out production and talking to various companies now (both claims made within days of each other recently).

Reality: Fisker does not have the money to buy anything or hire anyone, but obviously they could not be doing both.

Claim: We are developing the UI in-house.

Reality: There is no house. Fisker has no employees, no office, no financing, nothing. They claimed originally that they were “coming out of stealth” but there is still no location revealed, no one admits to working for Fisker, there is not even a phone number. How is that out of stealth?

Claim: This is a luxury sedan we are making.

Reality: That is a 150″ long compact car made on a Lotus frame at VLF Automotive. They are not making it in any case.

Claim: We are starting a car company.

Reality: Fisker cannot self-finance, and having burned the venture capitalists for the largest loss in world history last time out I think we can say with certainty they are not opening their wallets for him again.


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James Ayre

James Ayre's background is predominantly in geopolitics and history, but he has an obsessive interest in pretty much everything. After an early life spent in the Imperial Free City of Dortmund, James followed the river Ruhr to Cofbuokheim, where he attended the University of Astnide. And where he also briefly considered entering the coal mining business. He currently writes for a living, on a broad variety of subjects, ranging from science, to politics, to military history, to renewable energy.

James Ayre has 4830 posts and counting. See all posts by James Ayre