Henrik Fisker is officially resigning from his company citing disagreements. Does that spell the end of Fisker Automotive?
It might be tempting to think so and we can make one very easy prediction, the news this coming week will be about how Henrik Fisker resigns, slamming the door on his Fisker Automotive company. So far, the Fisker Karma, the luxurious plug-in hybrid has rolled off manufacturing and considering it a first generation vehicle, my initial test drive revealed an excellent start. So what happens when the founding visionary and talented designer, Henrik Fisker walks out the door?
Understanding Henrik Fisker. The car world has no mercy and Henrik Fisker got his first taste as owner with his Fisker Automotives. Soon enough, the company ran into growing pains and the company started attracting a lot of negative headlines. But Henrik Fisker is no beginner having worked as a designer at BMW on the Z07 and the exterior of the BMW Z8 roadster, as well as being the Design Director at Ford working with Aston Martin. It wasn’t until he started his southern California company Fisker Coachbuild that he finally got to do what every designer dreams of, that of creating his car.
With a brief stint at Tesla Motors doing the initial design on the Model S this might explain that slight sense of family resemblance between both Karma and Model S and that if Maserati and Aston Martin had an affair situation. Quantum Technologies provided Henrik Fisker the freedom to create and design.
Henrik Fisker Resigns. So the question remains, what becomes of a company if its visionary founder quits? History being the greatest teacher, one quick look at Tesla Motors’ past with the appalling Musk vs Eberhart bitter battle, we can see Tesla Motors is doing well and that reasonably the same internal tensions are happening at Fisker Automotive. Henrik Fisker must be fighting against a company board fresh from the last year’s problems and negative news.
There have been plenty of times in the past where founders have slammed the door to their company. Henrik Fisker could allow the company to work on offering an alternative energy vehicle consulting group to the automobile industry. Tesla has already struck strategic partnerships with other carmakers, Fisker needs to do the same. If Fisker Automotive wants to continue, it absolutely needs extra baskets and diversify. In this particular case, consulting would seem to make the most sense.
Three years ago I wrote that Fisker Automotive should be an automobile consulting group since their manufacturing system, design strategy and overall business model was so initially outside the box thinking. Today, more than ever I feel the same and as to Henrik Fisker, we can be sure he will one way or another produce other beautiful cars and we can only hope the Atlantic, with or without Fisker Automotive.
