Fisker Buzz Forums banner

ABC News rips Fisker a new one

11214 Views 35 Replies 11 Participants Last post by  Fabulist
As you all know I'm pretty pissed at Fisker right now, but I'll actually come to their defense this time. ABC did a new story tonight which ripped them pretty hard:

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/car-company-us-loan-builds-cars-finland/story?id=14770875

Lots of angry people on the Fisker Facebook page after that. I think the story is unfair because it is clearly just looking for dirt and taking things out of context. It fails to clearly specify that the government loan is primarily for the Deleware plant and that the Finland plant is just for the Karma to get them started. It fails to point out that all of the parts are coming from the US and US companies even tho it's assembled in Finland.

-Brian
1 - 20 of 36 Posts
brian said:
Lots of angry people on the Fisker Facebook page after that.
Maybe I missed the angry crowd on FB but all I saw was one cranky spinster talking about outsourcing jobs to Finland. Was this on the Fiskerautomotive page on FB or the comments on the CBS news page?

-- Fab.
Fabulist said:
Maybe I missed the angry crowd on FB but all I saw was one cranky spinster talking about outsourcing jobs to Finland. ...
The Wingnut Wurlitzer Group just latched on to Fisker as "the next Solyndra", so expect a lot of smoke (but no real fire) for a month-plus.
ct-fiskerbuzz said:
The Wingnut Wurlitzer Group just latched on to Fisker as "the next Solyndra", so expect a lot of smoke (but no real fire) for a month-plus.
It is unfortunate for Fisker to get on their radar, but since the money is already committed, there is not a whole lot they can do.

-- Fab.
By the way, here's Media Matters' response to ABC:

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201110210002
This is an exact repeat of the bogus-story Fox ran a year or so ago.
The video of the ABC story is on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRrtT9UTaYs

Totally unfair snuff job as far as I'm concerned.

-Brian
And Fisker's Response. Just went up on FaceBook. Nicely done!

:fisker:

Yesterday evening ABC News published a story entitled “Car Company gets US loan, builds cars in Finland”

ABC insinuates that Fisker used political connections to receive DoE loans and also makes the misleading point that, despite taking loan money from the DoE, Fisker is producing its first car, the Karma sedan, in Finland.

We think that ABC missed the mark and failed to tell the whole Fisker story.

Please note the following points of clarification:

The Fisker Karma is the world’s first environmentally-responsible luxury sedan with a unique hybrid electric powertrain developed by a highly-skilled team of engineers and designers in America.

Not a single dollar of the DoE loan has been, or will be, spent outside of the United States. All expenditures are reviewed by PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) on behalf of the DoE.

After receiving the DoE loan, Fisker made it a priority to create U.S. jobs, which led to the purchase of its own assembly plant in Delaware where we plan to establish production of our second, higher volume, line of vehicles (Project Nina). There are currently over 100 workers reconfiguring the Delaware plant so that Fisker will be ready to begin hiring a skilled hourly workforce to produce its Nina platform vehicles in the U.S. for export around the world. Many of these Delaware costs are covered by the DoE loans.

For the Karma program, the DoE loan money was used solely in the U.S. to fund design, engineering, and integration work. This has helped to create jobs throughout the U.S, including 650 people at Fisker’s headquarters in California, over 100 at the Delaware plant and many more at various suppliers.

More than 45% of the components of the Fisker Karma sedan are manufactured by approximately 40 suppliers located in the U.S. Some of our biggest suppliers in the U.S. include A123 Systems (Li-ion battery), General Motors Springhill Engine Plant (gasoline engine), Goodyear (tires) and TRW (regenerative braking system).

Only private equity financing has been used for costs not covered by the DoE loan. We have raised more than $600 million in private equity financing thus far and only a small part has been spent on production costs in Finland.

At the inception of the company, Fisker explored the possibility of producing the Karma in the U.S. However, there are no contract manufacturers like Valmet in the U.S., and none of the established domestic automakers were willing to partner with Fisker to provide a manufacturing option in the U.S. that would work for the Karma program.

There is no link between Fisker Automotive and any political party. We are politically neutral – our focus is on building luxury electric vehicles.

With the help of DoE loans, Fisker has already created hundreds of U.S. jobs, with thousands more in the near future. Ultimately Fisker will be a profitable, high-tech American Car Company that we’re confident will be an American success story to be celebrated.

Sincerely,

Henrik Fisker
CEO and Chief Designer
See less See more
Well said. I guess when someone lights Fisker's ass on fire they finally learn how to articulate.

-Brian
The ABC story pertty dumb actually. Make a lot of noise out of nothing, but then miss the real story which is the abismal fuel economy.
doug said:
It's pertty dumb actually. Make a lot of noise out of nothing, but then miss the real story which is the abismal fuel economy.
These are just new angles on that story. If Karma's EPA numbers had been better than promised, we would not be reading these attack pieces, or at the very least the pieces would have been a lot less vicious.

-- Fab
Fabulist said:
These are just new angles on that story. If Karma's EPA numbers had been better than promised, we would not be reading these attack pieces, or at the very least the pieces would have been a lot less vicious.

-- Fab
Really? I don't think so. I don't think the ABC piece makes any mention of the EPA numbers and in fact decribes the Karma as an efficient vehicle. What it is, however, is a delayed reaction to Solyndra and suggesting that Fisker (or Tesla for that matter) could become another Solyndra.
Yeah, I think the timing of this story is coincidental. It looks like they shot the interview and such well before they got the EPA certification. I think it's just back luck on the timing. Henrik isn't having a good week.

-Brian
doug said:
Really? I don't think so. I don't think the ABC piece makes any mention of the EPA numbers and in fact decribes the Karma as an efficient vehicle. What it is, however, is a delayed reaction to Solyndra and suggesting that Fisker (or Tesla for that matter) could become another Solyndra.
That's the sense I got since right after the EPA announcements, there were a number of articles like this one that linked the 20MPG rating and the $529M loan. The Solyndra/Tesla angle has been around for a while. In fact the Fisker loan closed on the same day that Solyndra went bankrupt (talk about bad timing) and no one said anything about Fisker or Tesla. But the current onslaught came right on the heels of the disappointing EPA numbers being announced by Fisker. Maybe it is coincidence, but I don't think so.

-- Fab
Fabulist said:
doug said:
Really? I don't think so. I don't think the ABC piece makes any mention of the EPA numbers and in fact decribes the Karma as an efficient vehicle. What it is, however, is a delayed reaction to Solyndra and suggesting that Fisker (or Tesla for that matter) could become another Solyndra.
That's the sense I got since right after the EPA announcements, there were a number of articles like this one that linked the 20MPG rating and the $529M loan. The Solyndra/Tesla angle has been around for a while. In fact the Fisker loan closed on the same day that Solyndra went bankrupt (talk about bad timing) and no one said anything about Fisker or Tesla. But the current onslaught came right on the heels of the disappointing EPA numbers being announced by Fisker. Maybe it is coincidence, but I don't think so.

-- Fab

It's also highly politicized as we are in a presidential election cycle here in the USA. Already the headline on YouTube is "Obama Admin Made Billion Dollar Gamble On Electric Cars - Made In Finland"

This is simply the usual sensationalized garbage that passes for journalism from commerical enterprises. They have to draw viewers to warrant advertisers, and sensational or polarized stories do that. Unfortnately, it's Fisker's day in the barrel.

It it bleeds, it leads...
It will probably blow over in a few days, when the crowd moves on to the next hyped sensation.

A nice rebuttal of the ABC-story: http://www.grist.org/cleantech/2011-10-21-the-facts-on-fisker-the-medias-latest-faux-scandal
Sheez... now Forbes is chiming in:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/10/22/why-the-fisker-karma-might-go-the-same-way-as-solyndra/

-Brian
That has to be the dumbest articele I read in a while. As if the fact that Tesla lost a lawsuit against Top Gear UK has anything to do with the how electric vehicles will fare. If you call that a 'problem' for Tesla, you really don't have a clue.

And that Europeans are not buying many EVs yet, is that any surprise? There is hardly any choice out there! Just wait until, besides the Fisker Karma and Tesla Model S, the mainstream Opel Ampera, Volvo V50, Ford Focus plug-in, Toyota Prius plug-in and Renault's 4 types of EV come to market. And Audi and BMW are also developing electric models.

And then he tries to lower the Fisker's 52 MPGe to 19 MPGe... He doesn't seem to realize - does anyone in the media even realize? - that many people can drive a Fisker Karma all year long without using any gas at all. And if the electricity they use comes from solar, wind, hydro or nuclear sources that they will have infinite mileage (100,000 or so MPGe).
See less See more
Lets take an honest look at this. I live in Delaware and want Fisker to be a major success for my fellow citizens and because I'm a car guy.
I was at the Boxwood plant as part of the media when VP Joe Biden was there and produced a story for TV. Since then I can't get any info or updates to keep the locals informed either from Fisker or from our government.
This just looks bad from the outside. When you take hard earned American Tax Payers money you should have a very open door policy and Fisker has not done this.
Like someone else who posted the Star Trek clip of Scotty talking to Jordy about marketing his engineering expertise, it is true of all marketing, when dealing with expectations and forecasts, underpromise and outperform. Fisker got it backwards.
1 - 20 of 36 Posts
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top