By Peter M. DeLorenzo
The Ocean was and is an embarrassment, executed with an astonishing level of incompetence that still leaves journalists who were exposed to it shaking their heads in stunned amazement that Fisker had the temerity to present it as being ready for prime time. It couldn’t have been further from that wishful notion.
And, of course, Fisker released a predictable statement about the bankruptcy filing: “Like other companies in the electric vehicle industry, we have faced various market and macroeconomic headwinds that have impacted our ability to operate efficiently,” Fisker said in a statement. “After evaluating all options for our business, we determined that proceeding with a sale of our assets under Chapter 11 is the most viable path forward for the company.”
Fisker should have stopped there, but then Fisker being Fisker, the next statement spoke volumes:
“Fisker has made incredible progress since our founding, bringing the Ocean SUV to market twice as fast as expected in the auto industry and making good on our promises to deliver the most sustainable vehicle in the world,” Fisker said.
Really? That’s what he’s going with? The King of Delusion is alive and well, apparently. Let me repeat what I said earlier – the Ocean was such a flat-out embarrassment and so far removed from being ready for public consumption that it could only be classified as a joke.
As I said in April in our AE Brand Image Meter: There is no more delusional car executive in this business than Henrik Fisker (well, except for St. Elon, who occupies a dimension of delusion all to himself). An obviously gifted designer, he has been operating on the principle that his talent justifies the means associated with running a real live car company. It doesn’t, and in fact it never has. Just ask Preston Tucker. Fisker has duped investors to believe in his shtick for well over a decade now, but this time, he has gone too far. There’s just no “there” there with Fisker. His Ocean SUV, which he promised would redefine the segment, instead was launched without a shred of justification to do so, to the point that Edmunds.com, in an unprecedented move, flat-out recommended that buyers simply stay away from it. (It seems that the value of the Ocean SUV Edmunds tested dropped by two-thirds in just 20,000 miles, it is so undercooked.) Now, it seems that the prospects for Fisker are Not. Very. Good. As in, bankruptcy is expected. Fisker should go back to designing – for someone else. And he should never be allowed to put his name on a car company again.
The High-Octane Truth hurts, doesn’t it, Henrik?
Fisker, like the storied egomaniacs from the auto industry’s past, decided that the world needed to be fluent with his vision and that if we could just see what he sees and understand the power of his brilliance, we’d all be better off. What did Fisker come up with? A crossover with all of the resonance of yesterday’s news.
The car business is one of the most difficult endeavors on earth. Fraught with peril at every step of the way and relentlessly complicated, this intensely competitive business offers a perennial primer on tailoring a dense concoction of complexity made up of design, engineering and advanced technology, and making it into a conveyance that is not only functionally palatable to consumers but desirable as well.
But as complicated as it is, the complexity itself doesn’t actually define this business. No, it’s the rampant egos involved that really make it hum. After all, would the movie business be anything special without the egos and the backstories? Of course not. The same can be said about the business of making cars. If it weren’t for the crazy egos at work in this business it would be decidedly boring and forgettable.
Unfortunately for the rest of us in this business, Henrik Fisker’s ego has been indulged at every turn, by his colleagues, his investors and even by the U.S. Government. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s basically just a guy with a dream of becoming a boutique luxury carmaker on someone else’s dime, like countless other dreamers who came before him and the countless others who will come after him, as sure as you’re reading this.
And I’m not denigrating those dreamers and blue-sky thinkers who are waiting to burst on the scene at any moment now, because heaven knows this business will always have a desperate need for that kind of unbridled thinking.
But Fisker? He and his “Ocean” have had their fifteen minutes of this industry’s attention. We’ve seen the laudatory design studies (although at the end of the day they count for exactly zero), we’ve seen the financing come and go like the wind, and we’ve even seen green-tinged government types get all misty-eyed over the prospect of a slinky green woosh-mobile, only to back off when they discovered that there was really no “there” there. In essence, it’s all over but the hand-wringing for Fisker.
Will the Shiny Happy People out there in search of the Next Big Thing in green transportation be disappointed when Fisker Automotive falls by the wayside? Maybe for a minute or two. But then they’ll move on to the next “next” in green transportation and won’t even remember Fisker existed.
And to those precious few out there who have bought into the Fisker mystique as being some sort of Green Magic Carpet Ride masquerading as a functioning automobile, one that will not only solve all of their problems with one well-timed neighborhood drive-by but will improve their rolling green quotient exponentially, well, there’s something to be said for you… something about fools and their money.
To the rest of us in this industry who know better, the “Fisker Follies” desperately need to be brought to a close, because the only thing clear about Fisker is that it is an automotive mirage that makes zero sense whatsoever: As a car, as a technological statement or even as an alleged automotive breakthrough.
It was overweight, overwrought and the fact that even one red cent of taxpayer money ended up underwriting Fisker’s Rolling Note to Self defies comprehension.
And that’s the High-Octane Truth for this week.
Editor’s Note: Click on “Next 1 Entries” at the bottom of this page to see previous issues. – WG