Henrik Fisker
Henrik Fisker
Henrik Fiskeris a Danish-born automotive designer and entrepreneur residing in Los Angeles, California. He is best known for designing iconic luxury cars including the BMW Z8, Aston Martin DB9, Aston Martin V8 Vantage, Fisker Karma, Galpin-Fisker Mustang Rocket, VLF Force 1 V10 and the VLF Destino V8. He also designed the Viking motorcycle and Benetti Fisker 50 superyacht. He is the founder of HF Design & Technology, co-founder of VLF Automotive, founder and former CEO of Fisker Coachbuild, and founder...
NationalityDanish
ProfessionDesigner
Date of Birth10 August 1963
CountryDenmark
One of the big failures for the big auto companies is that even the CEO and the top management often don't understand design and manufacturing. As a CEO, you have to make decisions; you need to have knowledge.
The biggest challenge is to build the team and start the company, while hiring people, raising money, building a brand which has no history, all at the same time. You're doing a lot of things that in an established company are already done.
If you think about jeans or phones or television, we are used to new brands popping up right and left. But in the car industry, we grew up with Mercedes, BMW, General Motors, and Ford, and nobody can remember during his or her upbringing a new car brand coming to life.
When I see a car I've designed going down the street and somebody admiring it, that's a nice feeling.
I have a 100-mile round trip commute on some of the nations' busiest roads and enjoy every minute of it.
When we first showed the Karma in January 2008, we had barely started the company.
At a European auto show, I had someone from a German car company come up to me and say the Karma should cost $125,000, not $87,900, but our development process lets us lower the costs. I guarantee it's profitable.
We believe that there are many buyers who want a stylish, sporty car that sends a positive message about their concern for the environment as they drive it down the street.