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Fisker calls out TM on MX delivery

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larmor

Active Member
Oct 27, 2014
2,863
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Westlake, TX
Check this out from oc register, regarding fisker restarting:

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/fisker-670214-new-karma.html

from the article:
“One of the mistakes that all car companies make is to talk too early about what might be,” Taylor said, citing Tesla’s repeatedly delayed Model X. “We want to be out next year. Midyear is our target. That’s what we’ve told the plants and our suppliers, but we won’t make any promises to say this is our launch date, get ready.”
 
There were a lot of reasons for Fisker's issues. Mostly rush to market to meet government and investor deadlines. I read the article as applauding Tesla for its patience to bring cars to market. That is now a luxury the "New Fisker" will have since it is solely privately financed with fairly deep pockets. I recognize by reading this forum, awaiting my long delayed Model X, that Tesla owners are extremely loyal. However, Fisker offered an alternative Extended Range EV in 2012 when Tesla didn't have the Super Charger network and was struggling as much in the EV market with its Roadster. It became the tale of two cities, had the department of Energy allowed Wanxiang to buy out the loan as was proposed in 2012, Fisker would have continued and the US government would have netted back an additional $100 Million of tax dollars. Politics prevailed, and forced bankruptcy instead. Not here to challenge Tesla's success or excuse Fisker's faults/problems which were many for varied reasons. Just to recognize there are alternatives to the approach. I will enjoy my Model X (soon), and appreciate it as much as my Fisker and recognize the two are distinct vehicles with their pluses.
 
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Check this out from oc register, regarding fisker restarting:

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/fisker-670214-new-karma.html

from the article:
“One of the mistakes that all car companies make is to talk too early about what might be,” Taylor said, citing Tesla’s repeatedly delayed Model X. “We want to be out next year. Midyear is our target. That’s what we’ve told the plants and our suppliers, but we won’t make any promises to say this is our launch date, get ready.”

A perfectly fair statement IMO. If Tesla delivers a single X this fall, it'll still be 2 years later than originally promised. It extends throughout the company too. Look at the folks upset about autopilot delays, the center console fiasco, promised software updates etc. Tesla needs to get that in check. (and I guess by "that" I mean their CEO's mouth)

*edit*:
There was a lot of reasons for Fisker's issues. Mostly rush to market to meet government and investor deadlines. I read the article as applauding Tesla for its patience to bring cars to market. That is now a luxury the "New Fisker" will have since it is solely privately financed with fairly deep pockets. I recognize by reading this forum, awaiting my long delayed Model X, that Tesla owners are extremely loyal. However, Fisker offered an alternative Extended Range EV in 2012 when Tesla didn't have the Super Charger network and was struggling as much in the EV market with its Roadster. It became the tale of two cities, had the department of Energy allowed Wanxiang to buy out the loan as was proposed in 2012, Fisker would have continued and the US government would have netted back an additional $100 Million of tax dollars. Politics prevailed, and forced bankruptcy instead. Not here to challenge Tesla's success or excuse Fisker's faults/problems which were many for varied reasons. Just to recognize there are alternatives to the approach. I will enjoy my Model X (soon), and appreciate it as much as my Fisker and recognize the two are distinct vehicles with their pluses.

Have to disagree here. Fisker had a LOT of problems (mechanically [and software], not just financially). The car just didn't deliver on what was promised.

As for the Roadster, Tesla did sell less than originally intended, but in 2012 they were well-past focusing on the Roadster and gearing up for the S to be their breadwinner, so I wouldn't say the Roadster was any indication of Tesla struggling in the EV market.
 
Have to disagree here. Fisker had a LOT of problems (mechanically [and software], not just financially). The car just didn't deliver on what was promised.
But the question is: how much of the mechanical and software issues were due to the rushing the car to market in order to meet the financial obligations? Or, put another way, had Fisker the luxury of more time, would the product have had all those problems? I suspect not.
 
But the question is: how much of the mechanical and software issues were due to the rushing the car to market in order to meet the financial obligations? Or, put another way, had Fisker the luxury of more time, would the product have had all those problems? I suspect not.

Well, Tesla did have to rush a bit as well (and I suspect it's part of the reason they revealed the X so early), but I think Fisker had deeper issues. Their car was form over function (Henrik being a noted designer). It was about the looks, the status etc. I mean, exhaust under the passenger and drivers doors? Just to keep the sleek, low-slung profile? The fairly-useless solar roof? I believe the term there would be green-washing?

They did not go bankrupt right away, so it's not like they didn't have time to fix their issues. I just don't think they were capable of doing so (note: I have no inside knowledge, but having test drove one while waiting on my S and spending time on the Fisker forums, that's my impression).
 
AnOutsider I would prefer not to debate your opinion. However, I have owned an Fisker since 2012 and followed every up down and sideways issue as well as being on Fisker's customer council. I applaud Tesla for not going the dealer route. Fortunately, here in ATL the Fisker dealer had two dedicated sales people who understood how to sell the technology. Their dedication and expertise allow the dealer here to sale nearly 5-7% of all the Fiskers sold in the US. Other dealers took the traditional approach, which frustrated Henrich Fisker (CEO and designer). Tesla recognized "salesmen" in dealership are not much more than greeters, who typically don't understand the new technologies coming in newer vehicles. Even the dealer here realized that trying to sell the Cadillac ELS (their version of the Volt), it was going to be a challenge.

I would differ with the article on the demand for EV's being down solely due the price of Oil. That is only part of the issue... the other part is dealers don't invest the education in salesmen trying to make commission and pay down a floor plan.

During my Karma ownership, I have followed each move by the Department of Transportation, Software changes and hardware issues (which have been minimal). The battery issue in the article was stated as "fire". It was never the case, the only vehicle that caught fire had a defective blower fan and the battery remained intact. The issue with the A123 battery was a failure of a connection in the battery cooling system, which would cause the battery the shut down. Unfortunately, a defective battery was in a vehicle purchased by Consumer Reports. As stated there were many issues, far to complex to go into here, so I suggest that is not "form over function". Keep in mind then concept is well proven in Electric Locomotives -- the diesel produces electricity to drive electric motors. The same function as the Fisker and Volt. No one can argue the "form" of the Karma is eye-catching.

Again I applaud Tesla on the road it has chosen, and Elon on how Tesla handled the battery issue on the Tesla by installing the Titanium Plate as well as taking the "fodder" away from the press. Fisker didn't publish the results, therefore the circular journalism took over. One can debate whether hybrid or fully electric vehicle is the better alternative. I will not dare venture into that debate here. Keep in mind, the Hendrick Fisker also designed the body of the original Model S Prototype before he and Elon Musk decided to part ways.

To your prior commit on the Roadster, please research. Here is just one article: ​Elon Musk Admits The Tesla Roadster Was A Hack Job
The Roadster was a proof of concept vehicle... to that end take a Lotus Elise, gutting it, and replacing with the EV internals was challenging at best and nearly bankrupted Tesla. To Musk credit, he stood by the concept and became the primary visionary for Tesla, and improved the Model S (delayed) and the Model X (multiple delays) to the eventual benefit of Tesla Motors. Fisker was selling a car -- Tesla is selling a automotive concept to change of habits around the world away from producing CO2.

Not a debate being right or more right -- As an owner of a Fisker four years, I respectfully may have a little more first hand information.
 
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I think "form over function" comment still remains fair. The car is not a very practical car mainly because of styling (cramped with minimal passenger and cargo room while having a huge footprint at the same time).

And as a comment on the company as a whole, it relates mainly to the focus by the company to delivery on design (which it largely did, not withstanding opinion over its mustache grille), but dropping the ball on engineering (examples below).

Promised / Result
Electric Range: 50 miles / 32 miles
Total Range: 300 miles / 230 miles
Efficiency: 67mpg / 52MPGe (electric) 20mpg (gas)
Sport mode 0-60: 5.8 secs / 6.3 secs
Stealth mode 0-60: 7.5 secs / 7.9 secs
Weight: 4650 lbs / 5300 lbs
Engine Power: 260hp engine 235hp generator / 170hp
Total Power: 408hp(300kW) / ~230whp

The only specs they matched is pretty much the top speed (125mph Sport, 95mph Stealth).

I was somewhat hoping they can turn things around to more engineering focused with the Atlantic, but the bankruptcy happened.
 
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> to that end take a Lotus Elise, gutting it, and replacing with the EV internals [Aljohn]

Not the case at all. For the nth time, the Roadster was stretched and redesigned such that there is little Elise left in it. The synergy of the Roadster holds up very well indeed - try one, you'll like it!!
--
 
To your prior commit on the Roadster, please research. Here is just one article: ​Elon Musk Admits The Tesla Roadster Was A Hack Job
The Roadster was a proof of concept vehicle... to that end take a Lotus Elise, gutting it, and replacing with the EV internals was challenging at best and nearly bankrupted Tesla.

Probably a bad move to first state 'please research' and then state the Roadster is merely an electrified Lotus Elise. :) If that were so, more than 6% of the parts would be interchangeable between an Elise and Roadster. It's a pretty common misconception, since Lotus did build the body under contract while Tesla focused on drive train. Mirrors, steering column housing, a few things like that.

The article is not news to most Roadster owners or long-time Tesla followers. Using another manufacturer to build the body while the company focused limited resources on proving a concept was the smart way to go. Would Elon have preferred they had the luxury (money) to design it in-house? Sure. But they didn't.
 
The Fisker Karma is an interesting, albeit, not anything like the MS. I test drove and considered the Karma, before I even thought about the MS.

If you are looking for a "glorified Volt", you have the Karma, although far less practical than the Volt. Buying a MS (early 2013 delivery) was the best car decision I have ever made. MX reservation in, and hope to have close to 100k miles on my MS before the X arrives.:biggrin: I wish Fisker the best, but it's no competition to Tesla and won't be for a very long time,
 
Check this out from oc register, regarding fisker restarting:

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/fisker-670214-new-karma.html

from the article:
“One of the mistakes that all car companies make is to talk too early about what might be,” Taylor said, citing Tesla’s repeatedly delayed Model X. “We want to be out next year. Midyear is our target. That’s what we’ve told the plants and our suppliers, but we won’t make any promises to say this is our launch date, get ready.”

Yeah good luck with those glorified hybrids. I'm sure they might snag a few Prius buyers.

It's amusing after their last failure they are still intent on building hybrids rather than a long range performance EV. I doubt anyone at Tesla is anything other than amused.
 
It seems that any mention of any thing other than Tesla EV is seen by Tesla owners as competition. To some degree, I get the dedication of early adopters. However, there no competition between Tesla, Fisker or Volt. I enjoy driving 80% of the time solely on battery and realizing 90-100MPG on a monthly basis with the freedom of getting in the car and driving 500 miles with little pre-planning. That is good for limiting CO2 emissions over all. As I await my Model X, I have learned Tesla is not for everyone -- some may not want to stop every 220 miles for 30 mins. to recharge or plan a trip based on Super Chargers or may not have the luxury of $90-100K to plunk down for a vehicle. Yes, I know there will be a Model III for those soon.

Even after all the SC installations, one still can't use I85 to travel from Atlanta to Charlotte, NC or continue to Pennsylvania on I81 through North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. This may change which I am sure Tesla is working on. Not that these vehicles better than Tesla -- but different. In the move to limit CO2 auto emissions, alternatives are GOOD. Nothing is wrong with Tesla, or Fisker, or Volt or even ICE cars that have become more efficient in the last 10 years. Consider if we became active against CO2 fifty years ago.... so there is a place for a Volt, Prius and others. BTW @MsElectric -- Fisker also "snagged" some Audi R8 owners as well--one may concede that driving a 60MPG rated Fisker is better than the V10 belching out 10MPG worth of CO2.

For my part, thanks to Toyota for starting the move to environmental consciousness years ago with the humble Prius. Those were early adopters of their day -- I applaud them.
 
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Yeah good luck with those glorified hybrids. I'm sure they might snag a few Prius buyers.

It's amusing after their last failure they are still intent on building hybrids rather than a long range performance EV. I doubt anyone at Tesla is anything other than amused.

Hmm. Previous post was strong. There is another factor why I would be paying attention- most driving a PHEV with tiny to moderate range can get 100+mpg easily. I was there myself. It has the positive effect on irrevocably hooking you into yearning more electric miles, but the Operational expense of fueling is so low (I used to fuel once every 5 weeks) that the additional value proposition of "save $300/month on gas" is diluted.
 
Thanks Bonnie for the "correction" on the Elise body. I have seen the Roadster, it was not my preferred vehicle style. I have always APPLAUDED Tesla on its daring proof-of-concept. Glad to see that it has updates available to the battery with newer technology. I can hope the new Fisker will do the same to extend it pure EV range. All is good.

Hope we all can get our Model X's and have them to discuss. All the speculative discussions are now getting old after 18 months. September awaits!
 
1) Yes, Elon Musk was really proud of what Franz von Holzhausen had done with the Model S, and wanted to show off the Model X in 2012 as soon as a prototype was built -- in hindsight, he may have chosen 2013 or 2014 for the reveal instead.

2) There was no way that anyone at Tesla Motors could have foreseen in early 2012 that Model S 85 was going to be their top seller, or that the Model S would be so popular that the full capacity of Fremont would be overwhelmed by its demand in 2013 and 2014.

3) The Model X that will be sold to Customers during Q3 2015 will be immensely better than anything Tesla Motors could have managed in Q4 2013.
 
It seems that any mention of any thing other than Tesla EV is seen by Tesla owners as competition. To some degree, I get the dedication of early adopters. However, there no competition between Tesla, Fisker or Volt. I enjoy driving 80% of the time solely on battery and realizing 90-100MPG on a monthly basis with the freedom of getting in the car and driving 500 miles with little pre-planning. That is good for limiting CO2 emissions over all. As I await my Model X, I have learned Tesla is not for everyone -- some may not want to stop every 220 miles for 30 mins. to recharge or plan a trip based on Super Chargers or may not have the luxury of $90-100K to plunk down for a vehicle. Yes, I know there will be a Model III for those soon.

Even after all the SC installations, one still can't use I85 to travel from Atlanta to Charlotte, NC or continue to Pennsylvania on I81 through North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. This may change which I am sure Tesla is working on. Not that these vehicles better than Tesla -- but different. In the move to limit CO2 auto emissions, alternatives are GOOD. Nothing is wrong with Tesla, or Fisker, or Volt or even ICE cars that have become more efficient in the last 10 years. Consider if we became active against CO2 fifty years ago.... so there is a place for a Volt, Prius and others. BTW @MsElectric -- Fisker also "snagged" some Audi R8 owners as well--one may concede that driving a 60MPG rated Fisker is better than the V10 belching out 10MPG worth of CO2.

For my part, thanks to Toyota for starting the move to environmental consciousness years ago with the humble Prius. Those were early adopters of their day -- I applaud them.

Well said. We are all on the same team and driving greener cars than 99% of the people on the road. The other day I waved a MiEV driver, and he actually looked surprised. I hope it's not because Tesla drivers are usually not friendly to another EV or green car just because they think their car is better.
 
Thanks @Sosius. And thanks for giving acknowledgement to the MiEV driver. It is widely viewed in other forums that Tesla drivers seem not to accept other technologies -- not just acceptance, but Tesla owners are viewed as mean-spirited. The comments like: "maybe they can snag some Prius buyers", and "maybe I can see them die twice" are unfortunate post fueling this view.

Tesla's forum is the only forum I have ever noted where it was necessary to post a Sticky "We encourage you to participate and only ask that you be respectful of others." No other set of owners, in any forum I have seen has needed to post such a "sticky".

As a future owner of a Model X, I prefer to take the high road and would encourage other Tesla owners to be more civil to one another and others. My Model X and Fisker Karma will share the same garage. I don't think either will belittle the other.