Henrik Fisker’s new company - Fisker Inc - of which he is Chairman & CEO, the second such self-named enterprise, has finally revealed its first car - the EMotion - at this year’s CES in Las Vegas. Teased on a couple of occasions prior, the EV promises some killer design and some potentially revolutionary technology.
After the way in which Mr Fisker’s first attempt at his own car, the Karma luxury sedan, went, he is unsurprisingly emphatic about the work put into the EMotion. The car conceived and penned by the prolific former automotive designer now fully embraces fully electric propulsion.
As a bit of a refresher, the Karma car still technically exists under the name Karma Revero after Fisker Automotive was sold to the Wanxiang Group of China, and still retains its range-extended electric powertrain in which a four-cylinder turbo-petrol motor is used to generate electricity to be stored in its onboard batteries before. Under full load, electric motors work in conjunction with the internal combustion motor to deliver the maximum 300kW output.
The Emotion, however, has the opportunity to be much more compact compared to the Karma, with comparatively little overhang and wheel placement stretched out to the car’s corners. In terms of looks, Fisker’s flair shines through even if you ignore the unique butterfly door geometry.
From the outside, there’s little hint that four passengers can be transported comfortably in a car this low and compact. It looks more like a two-door sports coupe more than anything meant to evoke a future free of fossil fuel dependency, emphasised most of all by its low stance, shapely silhouette, gigantic 24-inch alloys (they’re actually carbon fibre) which slightly skews the car’s perceived size, and aggressive rear diffuser. And have you seen those doors?
Two electric motors, one for each axle, can deliver enough thrust to achieve a top speed of 260km/h while, under more relaxed driving, can achieve an estimated range just shy of 650km. Exact power and acceleration times are expected to be very impressive, naturally, but the real story with respect to its powertrain is the cutting edge battery tech at play.
While the details are still under wraps, Fisker Inc’s is using an advanced solid state battery system to deliver the Emotion’s huge range while reducing the footprint and weight compromises that are typically associated to make EVs viable. The CES show car is said to be packing these prototype cells, which are still being developed with LG Chem.
Upon its projected launch in later 2019, the Emotion will unfortunately be using traditional lithium-ion cells. However, they expect cars produced past 2020 will be using the new battery technology and presumably will make a retrofit package available for early customers. Crucially, these enable ridiculously quick rapid recharging, taking just a few minutes to fill to capacity from near-depleted.
By then, it’s also predicated that widespread adoption of these new solid state-type batteries will be trickling to the wider spectrum of consumers, powering everything from flashlights to laptops due to their higher power density, lighter weight, and reduced degradation over time.
The Fisker Emotion is also quite an intriguing thing when judging its cabin, with an interior that’s futuristic, minimal, but also a little decadent. As the trend is nowadays, physical buttons and switches are demonised and eliminated to the point of extinction, but there’s plenty of lovely materials from perforated tan Nappa leather piano black surfaces.
There looks to be a fair amount of rear legroom too, but headroom looks to be a little hampered. And judging by the amount of room between the rear seats and very tail of the car, we can’t imagine there being a commodious boot either. Then again, with electric cars theres always the ‘frunk’ where a normal engine would live.
Fisker is also manoeuvring the Emotion to offer a strong suite of autonomous driving features at launch, having been in close collaboration with Quanergy, an OEM supplier of LIDAR sensors and AI driving software. The aim is to be able to offer Level 4 autonomous driving, at least theoretically if not legally allowed to run on public roads, at the time launch.
