Henrik Fisker Quotations

If you think about jeans or phones or television, we are used to new brands popping up right and left. But in the car industry, we grew up with Mercedes, BMW, General Motors, and Ford, and nobody can remember during his or her upbringing a new car brand coming to life.

We designed a car that is for daily commutes and that you charge every day. The less you use the gasoline engine, the better mpg. Essentially, the Karma can achieve dramatic savings and low CO2 output when used as intended, as a daily commuter.

I like to have the widest part of the car being the wheels and not the body. It gives it a more athletic look and, with the sculpture, helps make a car look sexy.

When I see a car I've designed going down the street and somebody admiring it, that's a nice feeling.

A painting doesn't have to have a real usability other than you looking at it. Obviously, a car, an engine, or battery has to fit people's needs.

I come from Denmark; Fisker Automotive comes from California.

I could imagine that boats sailing in harbors will only use electric engines. And then once they are out in the water they will use diesel.

I have a 100-mile round trip commute on some of the nations' busiest roads and enjoy every minute of it.

I like doing business with people in India.

I like to come up first of all with a free idea, thinking about and obviously understanding what is necessary for it to become a car.

I want to explore the existing manufacturing abilities of Indian companies and create products together.

I've always wanted to design a Mustang. I just never really had the opportunity in my career because the timing was never right.

Once investors come in, it's hardly your company anymore!

People feel very emotional about cars, and I don't want them to feel bad about driving a fast car.

The car is the most regulated thing in the world. It's more complicated to make a car than it is to send a rocket to space.

When I was at BMW and Aston Martin, I realized how difficult and how many resources it takes to create a car - let alone a car company.

When we first showed the Karma in January 2008, we had barely started the company.

You know what? Starting a car company is risky.

Any car designer always dreams about designing their own car - if they say they don't, they're lying... For me, it was never about starting my own company just to make another car.

As a car lover, I ask myself, 'What am I going to be buying in the future? Will it be a boring, underpowered, dorky car because the government tells me I shouldn't pollute? Or do I come up with a cool-looking, sexy dream car that is also part of the future?'

At a European auto show, I had someone from a German car company come up to me and say the Karma should cost $125,000, not $87,900, but our development process lets us lower the costs. I guarantee it's profitable.

Design - pure beauty - will be number one at Fisker Coachbuild. We want to bring beautiful, desirable cars to the market, limit the production of each model, and do so with the highest quality.

I remember, as a kid, riding in the back of my dad's old Saab 95 in Denmark. We were on the highway, and suddenly this silver Maserati Bora came upon us, then passed. At the time, to me, this car looked like a spaceship.

I used to have to pick up the phone and talk to people who placed orders for the car. When you reach a certain size, you need to have processes in place.

We believe that there are many buyers who want a stylish, sporty car that sends a positive message about their concern for the environment as they drive it down the street.

One of the big failures for the big auto companies is that even the CEO and the top management often don't understand design and manufacturing. As a CEO, you have to make decisions; you need to have knowledge.

I believe there's still room for the dream a lot of people in the industry have - to design and build your own cars.

My motivation for starting Fisker was simple: I thought there must be a market for beautiful, exciting, fast, environmentally friendly cars. The car is probably the only product you can still fall in love with and have a relationship with.

Most automakers develop multiple options for a single project. Then they present those options to a committee of executives who decide which one to go with. That takes a lot of time.

You need to focus on creating the actual value of the company, not just the theoretical value. The actual value comes from a great product that sells well and is ultimately profitable.

The biggest challenge is to build the team and start the company, while hiring people, raising money, building a brand which has no history, all at the same time. You're doing a lot of things that in an established company are already done.

If design isn't profitable, then it's art.