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Fisker's CEO Hints Tesla Got Customers Used to Car Problems

Henrik Fisker thinks Tesla got almost everything right, including the changing customers’ perception about how a car should be delivered to a buyer and how the vehicle should perform during the ownership. The executive discreetly points out people expect less and pay more nowadays.
Burnt Tesla Model 3 7 photos
Photo: Elijah/Twitter
Fisker OceanFisker OceanFisker OceanFisker OceanFisker Ocean will also be powered by its SolarSky solar roofHenrik Fisker
Henrik Fisker was invited to a podcast with Jason Stein where he touched on a variety of topics. The man was also asked by the host what he thinks of Tesla, and he gave an unscripted answer that shows what most people from the auto industry think about Elon Musk’s company.

Fisker says he watched Tesla closely along the years and witnessed firsthand how everyone was calling for the company’s bankruptcy and… It never happened. He’s confident the EV maker is at the epicenter of a seismic shift in the automotive space but also underlines some key changes that took place over the years.

The man thinks the future of personal transport will be about “who has the right products,” not the most products. Fisker believes enticing the customer will play a major role in the success of EV manufacturers, as the cult-like following developed around Tesla and its leader showed.

“Clearly Tesla has shown that despite the quality and service issues, people are still buying the cars and the company's products still get the highest consumer ratings,” said the CEO while pointing out that cars shouldn’t behave like aging smartphones. He thinks Tesla played the market extremely well and understood that customers aren’t as sensitive about certain car issues as they were ten years ago. Buyers accept some problems just to experience new technologies first and don't worry that much about software reliability.

Henrik Fisker even says he’s confident carmakers will even out at some point in terms of build quality because some aspects that mattered the most in the past are now almost irrelevant. For the time being, everything remains dynamic.

The executive is also anticipating that in the next five to seven years most legacy automakers won’t find themselves in the most successful section any longer, while up and coming entities will easily take their spots. He attributes this shift to Tesla’s way of interacting with customers, something that nearly all relevant stakeholders witnessed when Lucid and Rivian came to fruition and adopted almost the same business model.

Henrik Fisker is the CEO of Fisker Inc, the company that follows in the path of the defunct Fisker Automotive. Now the CEO and his new company are ready to follow through with a new crossover EV that borrowed some ideas from the Fisker Karma and improved them.

If you don’t know the executive, then you should keep in mind that before the Karma was a thing, he worked for BMW where he designed the Z8, and for Aston Martin where he envisioned the DB9 and the V8 Vantage. The Danish-American designer knows his stuff and he’s not giving up on the dream to make his own all-electric car. That’s why Fisker Ocean and PEAR are coming soon, despite what happened in the last couple of years.

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About the author: Florin Amariei
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Car shows on TV and his father's Fiat Tempra may have been Florin's early influences, but nowadays he favors different things, like the power of an F-150 Raptor. He'll never be able to ignore the shape of a Ferrari though, especially a yellow one.
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