They listed the stock in New York in October 2020 via a merger with a cash shell that provided $1bn it needed to launch its first car. Now they are perhaps the motor industry’s power couple, with Gupta-Fisker serving as chief financial officer. The personal relationship went better: they married in 2012. Fisker was pitching for investment in his first effort at an electric car company – confusingly named Fisker Automotive. Of all the functions in a German luxury car, 70% are never ever used by the buyer, but you’re still paying for all that Henrik Fiskerįisker met Geeta Gupta-Fisker, who has a PhD in biotechnology from Cambridge, when she was working for the investment vehicle of property tycoon Vincent Tchenguiz. Fisker puts that different approach down to the influence of his wife. It will rely on an Austrian contract manufacturer, Magna Steyr, to build its car in Graz. The Vantage became Aston’s all-time bestseller and made Fisker famous within the industry.ĭespite this, Fisker Inc has not tried to imitate traditional carmakers. He designed the DB9 and the smaller Vantage, which, to keep costs down, shared parts and used the same production line. (“That wasn’t a beautiful sight for me,” he sighs.)Īfter BMW, Fisker was headhunted by another Bond carmaker, Aston Martin, as part of a turnaround plan by then owner Ford. His first job was at BMW, designing models such as the Z8 roadster, the car famously destroyed by a chainsaw suspended from a helicopter in the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough. He spent hours drawing cars as a child, and studied at a design college in Switzerland. Like the bosses of several other electric car startups, Fisker mixes experience in the traditional car industry – at BMW and Aston Martin – with an environmentalist approach that handily aligns with the sales pitch for electric cars.īorn in Denmark, he inherited some of his concern for the environment from his parents when he was growing up in a village 18 miles from Copenhagen. Will come in at under $30,000 (£27,000), and a “super-sexy supercar” designed in the UK and codenamed Project Ronin. “I think the only thing I don’t listen to is rap music.” How he relaxes Drawing cars, going to the gym, listening to music – James Bond theme tunes, anything from the late 1960s and early 70s to the present day. “My father says if you want it badly enough, and you work hard enough, you can get it. Last holiday A half-day on the day of the interview. “I guess I don’t want to take any salary until we earn revenue and make money.” “But then again, I own a big chunk of the company,” he says. He has a daughter who also works in the company and a son who works for a tech company.Įducation Primary school in Denmark ArtCenter College of Design in Vevey, Switzerland. He says the firm will “definitely” produce 40,000 cars next year, and maybe as many as 50,000 if it gets the ramp-up right, he says, speaking via video call from California.ĭespite burning through $228m in the first half of 2022, Fisker Inc is pushing ahead with developing two other cars: a family vehicle called the Pear thatįamily Married to Geeta Gupta-Fisker, co-founder and chief financial officer of Fisker Inc. His company has now produced its first vehicles, and buyers of its Ocean SUV will start having them delivered in November. Even Tesla is struggling to meet its delivery targets. Fisker Inc has not been immune: its market value of $2.3bn is less than a third of its peak value of nearly $8bn. After seeing an extraordinary bubble during the bounceback from coronavirus, their stock market values have come down to earth with an almighty thump. Times have been tough for electric vehicle startups.
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