Automotive designer/entrepreneur Henrik Fisker was among the first to target the emerging market for electric cars, only to watch his initial effort come crashing down after the Great Recession drove the auto industry into the ground.
Unlike Tesla, Fisker Automotive focused on a highly stylized plug-in hybrid, rather than a pure battery-electric vehicle. The company founder was skeptical about the range and cost of the battery technology available then. After numerous delays, the Fisker Karma went on sale in October 2011, but a series of setbacks crippled the project. Fisker himself resigned in March 2013, and the company went bankrupt shortly afterward.
Like the Model Y, Fisker's entry will be powered by lithium-ion batteries, but rather than offering buyers a choice of different-sized packs, there will be only one. With 80 kilowatt-hours of storage, Fisker claims, it will yield close to 300 miles of range. Fisker said he hopes to have a"fully driveable" prototype available for analysts, investors and journalists to test by the end of this year.