Zac Palmer is an editorial intern at Autoweek, an affiliate of Automotive News.
Fisker (yes, that Fisker) has come to CES with a new electric car called the EMotion. The company's claims are impressive: It will be able to cover a minimum of 400 miles on a single charge, top out at 161 mph and is launching at the end of 2019.
The news here, however, is the EMotion's claimed capability to charge up to 125 miles of range after only nine minutes of being plugged in. Yes, it’s using lithium ion battery technology, but Fisker is upping the ante above your typical battery pack.
“What we have done is we have packaged [the battery cells] in a new way, in a unique, proprietary battery module, where we have created a new cooling system. What it does is allow for us to probably have the most energy dense battery pack in the world because we have been able to put these cells very close together and still be able to cool them very efficiently,” designer and company founder Henrik Fisker says.
A 143 kilowatt-hour battery is used to deliver the 400-mile range, but Fisker says the significant battery weight doesn’t hurt the vehicle tremendously -- he took weight out with a simpler cooling system and lightweight construction of the battery case. It’s made of a material used by the U.S. military, but Fisker isn’t ready to give away his secrets quite yet.
There’s a combination of sports car and GT car styling used on the EMotion, with a bit of Fisker flair as well. The four doors open up and out in an exotic style, and the rear is distinctly Aston Martin-like. A lidar system is housed on the nose of the car to offer something close to autonomous driving -- there’s no indication as to the level of autonomy yet though. Fisker says to expect some exotic materials throughout the car, such as carbon fiber, aluminum and various composites to keep the weight down.
“What we decided to do is -- we are really calling it a low-volume car, which allows us to use a lot of exotic materials. We can use low-volume, lower-cost tooling. Of course, that limits somewhat the amount of units we can produce, but it gives us a lot of flexibility in adding a lot of exciting new tech into the vehicle,” Fisker says.
The company claims the EMotion will be sold directly to consumers all across the U.S., and it plans to eventually have a network of about 400 service centers, all offering concierge service. No performance numbers are available as of now, but the base price is: $129,900. Of course, you’ll be able to option the EMotion with plenty of extras such as carbon fiber wheels, an electrochromatic roof and other as-yet-announced announced goodies.
Additional Fisker news involves an unannounced second high-volume vehicle that it wants to team up with a large automaker to make, and the solid-state battery tech it claims will allow for a much smaller battery, plus a zero-to-full charge in about a minute. Ambitious, but we look forward to further developments.
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