Luxury auto designer Henrik Fisker to unveil new all-electric car in 2017

PanARMENIAN.Net - Henrik Fisker has relaunched his namesake company, Bloomberg reports.

The charismatic Dane said his newly minted Fisker, Inc. will showcase a premium, all-electric vehicle in the second half of 2017. In a private phone call, he called it a “spiritual successor” to the Fisker Karma electric car he launched in 2012.

“We have really been working in stealth mode,” Fisker said. “For the last two years, I have been looking at battery technologies and wanted to see if there was something that could really give us a new paradigm. We had the strategy of developing the technology as fast as possible without getting tied down to a large organization, which would hold us back.

Now we have the technology that nobody else has. And there is nobody even close to what we are doing out there.”

The designer credited with creating the BMW Z8, Aston Martin V8 Vantage, and Aston Martin DB9 saw his Fisker Automotive Inc. go through a structured bankruptcy auction in February 2014, where Wanxiang Group bought certain assets, excluding the Fisker brand. Fisker, Inc. is Henrik Fisker’s new entity and Fisker Nanotech is its battery division, a new private corporation based in northern California. Fisker is the chairman and chief executive officer of Fisker Inc; Jack Kavanaugh is the chairman of Fisker Nanotech.

Details about the new car—and specifically, the new technology—remain scarce. Kavanaugh said he hopes they will achieve unparalleled range and battery life, thanks in part to a new packaging method and to lightweight materials in the battery pack.

“The technology emanates from several professors from UCLA who have been working on energy storage,” Kavanaugh said, noting that the batteries will contain some lithium but not be the conventional lithium-ion batteries found in such things as the Tesla Model S. “We have already developed prototypes that you won’t see anywhere else.”

The team claims that the new Fisker model, which has yet to be named, will deliver more than 400 miles in driving range and possess an industry-leading battery life that will potentially match the life of the vehicle. The plan is to develop it at Fisker Nanotech's prototype-and-manufacturing facilities in California, Kavanaguh said. It will feature more rear legroom and headroom than any of its closest competitors.

Fisker declined to say much about how it will look; images will be available by mid-2017.