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Paul Gover18 Jun 2018
NEWS

Fisker targets shuttles

But there’s life in the privately owned and driven automobile yet, says EV and hybrid pioneer

One of the architects of the world’s motoring future says autonomous electric cars will not mean an end to private motoring.

Despite the expanding trials of driverless shuttles, shared ownership and other forms of communal motoring, Henrik Fisker says any prediction of a world without private cars is wrong.

Fisker, a disrupter in the car world since he designed concept cars for BMW in the 1990s and now the founder and CEO of the Fisker Inc. technology company in the USA, cites a parallel between motoring and food.

“You might eat out five days a week, but you still have a kitchen at home and you cook a couple of nights,” Fisker told motoring.com.au.

“I think people will still like to have their own private car. There may be areas we don’t drive our own personal car all the time, but we will still have it.”

Fisker was one of the first into hybrid cars with the luxury Fisker Karma in 2011 and his latest business venture covers all the bases on future motoring — from a solid-state battery to autonomous systems, short-range driverless vehicles, even prestige and luxury electric cars.

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Unlike Tesla, which is building its own vehicles, Fisker is working with a number of large corporate partners to go from pure research through testing and into production.

He believes all of his projects can be in production inside five years, starting with the Orbit, an autonomous electric shuttle suitable for university campuses and business parks, airports and city centres.

“We have a different business model. We believe in partnerships to keep the costs down,” Fisker says.

The Orbit is being jointly developed with Protean Electric, a world leader of in-wheel motor technology.

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“We’ll have the first test vehicle running at a corporate campus in the US next year. We could go into limited product next year. We need to figure out what the real production volume can be. Nobody knows,” Fisker says.

“It’s designed and engineered in a very simple fashion, so it can be made in both low and high volume. In the start, we will start with private campuses, city airports… So very short, set routes to keep things under control.”

He has much bigger plans for Fisker Inc and is working with a number of large partners (which he is not naming ) to go from pure research through testing and into production.

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“I would predict that serious mass-market and large-scale adoption of electric cars will come between 2022 and 2025,” Fisker says.

Despite a lack of infrastructure, and zero subsidies from government, Fisker is confident that Australia will join the drive to future motoring.

“I think for the next few years to have an electric vehicle is a very unique statement. In Australia it is a hard sell, and in many other countries,” he says.

“I think Australia may just have an amplified version of the electric car problem. The problem is the range. You don’t want to be stuck in the bush.

“I would have thought Australia as pretty futurist. Remember the Mad Max movies. I think it’s just matter of time,” Fisker stated.

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Written byPaul Gover
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