Production Date Fixed -- Finally

I hate to tell you all this, but I was told this week that the earliest we will see cars in the dealer to test drive if you didn't already order it would be August. There are 200 cars being made for delivery in August. The 100 signature cars and 100 for dealers to do demos on. For those that ordered in April (1st order run), you can expect sometime in late August or September. I was told that the second ordering cycle ended this past Sunday. Delivery estimated to be at best September! So.....If you are like me, who was number 354, but have not ordered yet because of concerns over the commitments from Fisker, and the clear lack of hitting targets, if we wait til August to do a test drive and then order, we could expect to get the car anywhere from 4-6 months post our order, thus putting it in the middle of Winter! Don't know how this beast goes in the snow, but if it's that long to get one, I'm going to wait til November to order so I get it when things thaw again and I can enjoy it every day!

All this information came from a very pleasant customer care person who was extremely honest and helpful (first time ever for Fisker in my mind) and was reached at the Fisker Consumer Affairs number of 855-347-5371. For those of you who want to talk with a pleasant, informative person, call this number. Won't promise you that you will get any concrete answers, but he was able to answer some other questions and concerns I had related to the rear headroom. I'm 6'3" tall, and in the demo they took around I felt like I was hitting the ceiling in the back seats. I was told rear headroom is only 35.6" due to the slope of the roofline. I am still one who hopes to own one of these great cars, but the longer it takes and the less real honest communication we get from Fisker (dealer told me May test drives!!!) the more I am looking at alternatives. No real way to treat people willing to shell out over $100k for a car. All the best to those who have a greater sense of patience than I do. As a relief to some of you, if you ordered the car and it comes and you don't like the looks, color combo, the way it drives, or anything else about it, I was assured once again that you would NOT have to buy the car and that you would be able to get your deposit back direct from Fisker. Now if there was some way to get a good quality picture of EVERY color on a real car from Fisker (consumer affairs group couldn't even provide that), then it'd be easier to make the final pick. Hate to choose a color combo that I think I want, wait 6 months for it to come, and then not buy it only to wait another 6 months for a replacement. Good luck everybody. Your original deposit number won't matter anymore since there's plenty of us who are waiting to see what happens.

I wonder if Fisker have any parts that got delayed / canceled due to the Japan quake-and-tsunami...

Anyway, I would be cautious about doing a linear projection here:

If it takes until the end of August to get to 750 cars or even 1000 considering dealer demos etc. and production began on March 21st, that equates to around 200 a month.

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(200 per month is a linear projection: April, May, June, July, August = 5 months, 1000 / 5 = 200.) Fisker have said repeatedly that they will start slow and ramp up. If they have made 1000 by early August, it could, for instance, be: 5 in April, 25 in May, 125 in June, 625 in July, etc. This is an exponential growth series where each month they produce five times as many as the previous month.

Now, I'm not suggesting that $n = 5 \sup \mbox{month}$ (to write it in LaTeX-ese) is the actual ramp-up equation either. It's much more likely that they make 1 per day initially, then 3, then suddenly jump to 12, then 15, for instance. Basically, work out kinks, then when it looks good, increase the pressure and find lots of new kinks, work those out, etc.

All of this will make it hard for Fisker, even with all the information, to predict when anyone's car would actually arrive. So I sympathize with them. Still, they really do owe a lot more visibility to those who have orders in....

I called my dealer yesterday to ask if my production date - deposit #217, part of 1st production batch - is known, but unfortunately they couldn't tell me anything, simply because they have not been informed.

A few months ago Bernard Koehler said, in Paris, that some VIP's - so signature editions #1, #2, etc. - might be getting their car late June and 'regular' customers in July (I assume that means late July). If the production date of Soflauthor's car - #737 - is August 31 and delivery might be early October, than it still looks they are close to the schedule Koehler has mentioned. They would go from delivery of # 1 in late June/early July to #737 in early October, so 250 cars per month (more likely 150 - 250 - 350). The 200 demonstration cars - I heard many dealers ordered 3 to 4 cars - will then be built in April, May and June (with delivery in June or July).

But if the information Hokiebird got from Fisker Consumer Affairs is correct, this whole schedule has been moved back by about one month, with deliveries from the 1st order run (I am assuming these are regular cars, not the signature editions) starting in 'late August or September'.

They must be having their reasons for doing this (technical changes), it would however be nice - it has been said before - to communicate better about this. Even the dealers are being kept out of the loop. Communication is still Fisker's weak point; I haven't seen a newsletter from Fisker itself in a long time. Anyone know if Tesla did a better job in the early stages of the Roadster-production process?

About the performance: considering that every gasoline- or diesel-powered car in the world has a worse mileage than advertised and also electric cars like the Leaf do not provide the range that is advertised, I think it is safe to assume the Fisker will not get to 50 miles full-electric. If it did, Fisker would be the first company in the world to market a number that is realistic. And that itself is unrealistic.

brian said:

Aaaaaaarrrrgghhhh!!! I just heard from my dealer and was told that my production date is September 19th! Holy crap! That now means I won't see mine until the end of October.

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Strange, you are #659 and your production date is September 19, while Solfauthor has a later number, #737, but his production starts sooner, on August 31. I guess he got the spot of someone who dropped out at the same dealership.

I think BillyO is right to point out that the production process is very sensitive, with very little being produced in-house. If one of the suppliers, even the smallest one, has a delay then the whole production process stops. I guess we are now learning the hard way that a brand new car in combination with a brand new company requires a lot of patience.

Would be nice if, like Solfauthor suggests, something could be done for those who have been loyal for such a long time (for example no extra cost for the exterior or interior colour scheme). The 2000 people that have made a deposit such a long time ago are one of the main reasons Fisker was able to raise so much money from investors in the first place. Our enthusiastic interest for the Karma, before we have even driven it, must have been a major support for Fisker's business case and convinced investors that this is a viable car/company.

Best way to get someone's attention is to walk away from what they've got to offer. If collectively we all voiced our displeasure via cancellation of our orders, I think that would draw some attention. I think it's a great idea to have them compensate those who've waited longest with comping something. To charge us for exterior color upgrades, interior upgrades, and then to charge us who knows what for the home charging station which by the way will probably cost another $500 to install in your home, is just absurd at this point. Add to this the $85k price that's now $10k more, and it all adds up to a recipe for a disaster. Wonder if Henry Ford pissed off his first customers!

While I realize that no-one is collectively going to give up their slot after this much time, there should be some way to get the company's attention. On my post earlier in the week I left the phone number for the Consumer Affairs group. Perhaps a few irate phone calls there to express our concern would get to the right person. By the way, what they guy told me on the phone which I left on the post has come completely true based on the posts today related to test drives and cars ordered in April and May. Roughly 50% of those who have a deposit supposedly have placed an order. The others, like me, who by the way was number 354, are waiting to test drive the real thing, so I keep saving my money hoping this time next year I'll actually have to plop down a $100k. Hell, perhaps I'll win the lottery by then and I won't care how long it takes or what it costs. Then again, if the world ends tomorrow as that nut in California is predicting, at least we're all out only our deposits!

Also, the reason a later number is ahead of an earlier one is that they placed their order on the first production wave earlier than your dealer did. They didn't wait to get them all in and then arrange by deposit number. They took it first come first served at that time. Another nice piece of customer focus isn't it!

AAAAARRRGGGGHHH Is being Kind.

Hokiebird said:

Also, the reason a later number is ahead of an earlier one is that they placed their order on the first production wave earlier than your dealer did. They didn't wait to get them all in and then arrange by deposit number. They took it first come first served at that time. Another nice piece of customer focus isn't it!

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Hmm... interesting theory. According to a lady from Fisker who called me back in January, Fisker stopped tracking pre-orders well over a year prior to that. She said that any orders in 2010 or 2011 were only on-file with the dealers and Fisker had no knowledge of placement in any queues. She said it was up to the dealers to handle the order placements on those.

So, perhaps that means that any of the 2009 Fisker-direct orders that they got are getting priority, and then they take the dealer orders as first-come-first-served? I suppose that would make sense and be the most fair way of handling it. That may mean I'm not going to be the first in Austin to receive the car even tho I got my order in 1st and I have the lowest order #. The guy who was #2 to get his order in had been on the list for 2 years, so in theory his car will get priority.

-Brian

Giving up my spot as part of a collective action is not an option. I still am really fond of this car/concept (and just a lot less about the communications department at Fisker). Also, I don't think it would make much of an impression if some people dropped out. It just gives dealers a chance to move people up the list. And I think the Karma will sell very well after it finally releases.

I still want Fisker to become a success, if only to prove that it is possible to start a (green) car company from scratch. So I hope that in half a year time most of us will be driving their Karma, marvel at it, and forget what happened.

Unfortunately the time schedule has proven to be be way too optimistic, again and again. Delivery at the end of 2009 was never realistic to begin with, and I think neither was mid-2010. February-March 2011 was probably the first one that could have held up. But there was still a lot of testing to be done, so any problem that occured would have put that date in jeopardy. And it did. The new muffler must have put back the start of production by at least 1-2 extra months, and that is only one technical problem we know of. Crash testing, for which I heard 18 cars were used, luckily seems to have gone very well, with no major faults. You don't want to have to do any major restructuring. Actually, what I've heard, is that the Karma is the second most rigid car in the world (36.000 Nm/degree), with only the Rolls Royce Phantom being more rigid.

Maybe they could have launched the car earlier, with small faults like a noisy muffler. Just like Tesla did with the Roadster. The first Roadsters had to be retrofitted with a new gearbox, a fault that was already known when they were delivered. Fisker could have done that, but I am glad they didn't. The car can only make one good first impression. Just a shame the communications department completely failed on that point.