Industry News: Tesla's CEO Calls Out Fisker

[William Maley]

William Maley

Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com

August 21, 2012

Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk recently gave an interview with Automobile Magazine talking about the company and what lies ahead. Musk also took the opportunity to rip into Fisker.

“It’s a mediocre product at a high price. The car looks very big, and yet it has no trunk space and is very cramped inside, particularly in the rear seats.”

Musk also spoke out against Fisker founder, Henrik Fisker.

“The fundamental problem with Henrik Fisker — he is a designer or stylist…he thinks the reason we don’t have electric cars is for lack of styling. This is not the reason. It’s fundamentally a technology problem. At the same time, you need to make it look good and feel good, because otherwise you’re going to have an impaired product. But just making something look like an electric car does not make it an electric car.”

Musk went onto to say, “[Fisker] thinks the most important thing in the world — or the only important thing in the world — is design, so he outsourced the engineering and manufacturing. But the fact is…that’s the crux of the problem. And he’s outsourcing to people who don’t know how to solve the problem.”

So why does Elon Musk have so much hatred for Fisker. Well, Musk alleges that when Fisker was tasked to design the Model S, he took specifications of the vehicle and used them for the Karma.

“We were paying someone to do styling for his own car,” Musk said.

Tesla sued Fisker over this, but was unsuccessful.

Automobile Magazine asked Henrik Fisker for comment. This was his response.

"Obviously, Tesla and Fisker are appealing to two different customer bases with two totally different technologies. Tesla has pure EV and Fisker has a range-extended offering with no compromise on range. We are proud to have delivered over 1000 Karmas to customers in the U.S. and Europe and are now moving into the [Gulf Cooperation Council countries] and Chinese global markets.

We wish Tesla all the best with their latest model and hope that both companies go from strength to strength as they challenge the automotive rulebook."

Source: Automobile Magazine

William Maley is a staff writer for Cheers & Gears. He can be reached at [email protected] or you can follow him on twitter at @realmudmonster.

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[dwightlooi]

The fundamental reason we don't have electric cars is because gasoline and diesel offer superior convenience, range and performance at a lower price. Despite the rise of oil prices in the past decade, oil is still the most economical, most portable and convenient form of energy available -- by a wide margin.

I have no doubt that ultimately human civilization will transition to Nuclear Generation, Grid Distribution, Battery Storage and Electric Propulsion. But that day is not today and not anytime soon. Gasoline will have to be $100 a gallon, it is not and it won't be for a long time.

[loki]

it could be that expensive, but only in the US Venezuela's gas is what, like 0.50/gallon?