Does Fisker or any other electric car maker have breakthrough technology? | FerrariChat

Does Fisker or any other electric car maker have breakthrough technology?

Discussion in 'General Automotive Discussion' started by bitzman, Feb 26, 2019.

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  1. bitzman

    bitzman F1 Rookie
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    #1 bitzman, Feb 26, 2019
    Hendrik Fisker once had a car company called Karma and it had a pretty good looking hybrid electric car, rival to the Tesla Model S. But he lost the company and I believe Chinese own it now but make them in the Inland Empire (near Riverside). Still called Karma but with the added word Revero, no longer Fisker Karma.
    Anyway Hendrik , being a plucky lad who doesn't take defeat easily, went on to introduce an all new prototype but it supposedly depends on some battery system (he calls it "Flexible Solid-State battery ") technology that is not in production yet (and may need huge investment to get into production). I was wondering, as a guy who still like internal combustion engines and doesn't like electric cars, what is so great about his new system, is it great enough he could license it to other automakers? In other words, do any of the players in the electric car field possess any technology that is streets ahead of their competitors or are they all the same boat?

    A website called Electrek.com says that "Furthermore, we found out that the company was using some shady techniques to hype the product by sockpuppeting on articles." I am a wordsmith but admit I don't know that term "sockpuppeting."

    But I did notice in the PR puffery they quote on that site that Fisker said his car was going to be produced in 2018. And the last time I looked at the calendar, it was 2019 on my calendar and counting....


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  2. definitelysomeday

    definitelysomeday Formula Junior

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    #2 definitelysomeday, Feb 27, 2019
    Sockpuppeting is simply creating a new/fake identity to talk about yourself. So I am guessing they company was hyping their stuff while pretending to be a member of the press, car buying public, analyst, etc.
     
  3. Jaguar36

    Jaguar36 Formula Junior

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    #3 Jaguar36, Feb 27, 2019
    Battery technology is mature enough that there is unlikely to be any 'breakthrough' technology. I think we'll be looking at a steady pace of improvements both in cost and energy and power density. Similar to HP or MPG increases on gasoline powered cars. Cost is the current focus of most of the efforts as the energy and power density are good enough at this point. Cost is currently improving quite rapidly, but not due to any individual breakthrough, just a combination of larger volume and a whole slew of small improvements.

    Besides if Fisker had a real 'breakthrough' they would have sold it to Panasonic/Tesla, LG, Samsung or someone else.
     
  4. Echo Charlie 1131949ZULU

    Echo Charlie 1131949ZULU Rookie

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    #4 Echo Charlie 1131949ZULU, Feb 27, 2019
    Didn’t Bob Lutz buy some unfinished FISKERS an put Corvette engines in them ? Asking big bucks . Edward
     
  5. bitzman

    bitzman F1 Rookie
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    #5 bitzman, Feb 28, 2019
    Don't know about Lutz' deal, suspect only one or two cars. But my friend who is a retired auto engineer wrote me
    "Elon Musk has already given away his company's patents to Tesla’s competitors. See the original 2014 news story below:

    https://www.wired.com/2014/06/tesla-just-gave-all-its-patents-away-to-competitors/

    It may well be that Musk has not fully “opened the kimono.” Experts seem to agree that Tesla still has an advantage over other EV car makers in the realm of operational control software. Even though engineers from competition might have the physical possession of a computer out of a Tesla, they probably can’t reverse engineer what the internal electronic chips do."

    I know automakers around the world have borrowed Teslas and dis-ssembled them at their factory but I wonder if they could duplicate them mechanically or if there's still mysteries that only Tesla has the answer to.
     
  6. ross

    ross Three Time F1 World Champ
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    #6 ross, Mar 19, 2019
    Last edited: Mar 19, 2019
    its Henrik Fisker, and yes the Karma is a sweet ride :)

    his new car is the E-Motion, and it is supposed to have the new battery tech, that several other companies are also talking about because they all own a piece of it - it is not a fisker proprietary thing. the tech on that has been studied for quite a long time already, and it is pretty close to be released, but i hear there are still a few things that need tweaked.

    you can find plenty more info here

    https://www.fiskerbuzz.com/forums/97-fisker-emotion/
     
  7. tritone

    tritone F1 Veteran
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    #7 tritone, Mar 19, 2019
  8. BMW.SauberF1Team

    BMW.SauberF1Team F1 World Champ

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    #8 BMW.SauberF1Team, Mar 19, 2019
    The last battery revolution was the Lithium ion battery and that really started in the 1970s and took until 1991 for Sony to release the first one commercially. We didn't really see much of it in mainstream use until the 2000s when handheld electronics took off.

    The next revolution is solid state like you say, but that is still a long ways away. I think the first will be ceramic based, but that's only a guess based on a few articles I read every month or so on the subject. They still can't compete with Lithium ion in terms of energy density (W/kg).

    An Aluminum ion battery would be as good as it can probably get before solid state technology. Aluminum has 3 electrons to exchange per ion compared to Lithium with one. Aluminum's theoretical energy density is over 1,000W per Kg. Lithium is 400. Right now Aluminum batteries can do 200 W/kg so not enough to push Lithium to the side commercially.
     

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