New Joint Venture Between Quantum and Fisker to Introduce Premium Plug-in Hybrid
05 September 2007
Fisker Automotive, Inc., a new joint venture company formed by Quantum Technologies and Fisker Coachbuild, will introduce a new premium plug-in hybrid car at the 2008 North American International Auto Show in Detroit in January.
Initial production is anticipated to be 15,000 vehicles annually with pricing to start under $100,000. Design and technology development are already underway for the first production car.
All models will feature plug-in hybrid technology—called “Quantum Drive”—developed by Quantum Technologies exclusively for Fisker Automotive. The proposed Quantum Drive chassis layout will support a range of plug-in hybrids planned by Fisker Automotive.
This breakthrough chassis development will allow us to deliver a design with dramatic proportions—one which will carry the Fisker badge. We want people to drive beautiful fast cars that make environmental sense—cars that are eco-chic and will have less of an impact on global warming.
—Henrik Fisker, CEO Fisker Automotive, Inc.
Henrik Fisker has been involved with the design of a range of high-end automobiles, including the BMW Z8, Aston Martin DB9 & V8 Vantage, the Tramonto and Latigo CS.
Our goal here is to deliver the advancement that Quantum Technologies has made in the area of plug-in hybrid technology. By combining our efforts with the renowned design talent of Henrik Fisker, we can produce a car that makes a difference to the environment—without sacrificing the luxury that accompanies the finest automobiles.
—Alan Niedzwiecki, CEO Quantum Technologies
Quantum is a supplier of clean propulsion technologies, fuel and energy storage technologies and services including propulsion systems for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, hydrogen internal combustion engine vehicles, compressed natural gas vehicles, liquid petroleum vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids based on advanced electronic control systems and lithium-ion batteries developed by Quantum’s strategic alliance partner Advanced Lithium Power Ltd. (ALP) (Earlier post.)
ALP has developed proprietary battery management and control systems, including cell balancing and thermal management, for lithium-ion battery packs. Quantum acquired a 19.9% stake in Advanced Lithium Power Inc. in 2006. (Earlier post.) Quantum is using an ALP battery pack and management system to fulfill a $2.1 million contract from California’s South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) to develop, manufacture, and deploy 20 Ford Escape PHEVs for demonstration in Southern California.
In April, ALP and Quantum separately signed Memorandums of Understanding with a leading Chinese automaker to jointly develop battery-dominant propulsion systems for passenger vehicles, with the goal of establishing a cooperative venture to commercialize products globally.
Very interesting news. This consortium of firms is far more serious than the Altairnano / phoenix alliance and their business is far more pronounced with 15000 cars for initial production. Also they fill in a niche that has a market but no product yet. This niche is all the rich people that want a 100 mpg car because it is the right thing to have but that would never drive a ‘lousy and small’ Prius plug-in or a Volt plug-in for that sake. Nor do they want a sports car like Tesla with a limited driving range. Tesla is great for fun but it is no good for everyday driving. I will pay attention to their coming news announcement for sure.
Posted by: Henrik | 05 September 2007 at 12:10 PM
Well, I'm a little surprised. These guys weren't even on my radar screen. Have any of you heard any other news? What stage are they at? ... the last "Quantum Drive" I had was an 80Mbyte disk drive.
Posted by: Neil | 05 September 2007 at 01:20 PM
Is this just more vaporware?
Posted by: Harvey D | 05 September 2007 at 01:45 PM
Harvey D,
Well I can't really find more detials on google so, probably. Heck I can't even get on Fisker Automotive web site, is it broken?
Posted by: Ben | 05 September 2007 at 01:49 PM
This is for real. A great combination of both a company with technical expertise in PHEVs, as well as a real car designer in Fisker. This one is going to be fun to watch.
Posted by: David | 05 September 2007 at 04:39 PM
David,
Well I would like to at least get into there web site and find out more. Could you help find a link (that works)?
Posted by: Ben | 05 September 2007 at 04:52 PM
http://www.fiskercb.com/
I'm glad Google works on my computer. ^_^
Posted by: Domenick | 05 September 2007 at 05:28 PM
For some reason that site keeps deadlinking on me
Posted by: Ben | 05 September 2007 at 05:36 PM
probably because it's getting so many hits right now.
Posted by: David | 05 September 2007 at 05:47 PM
Fisker is a real high end custom car company that has been featured in auto mags before. They are very small volume and take a BMW 6 series and rebody it for around $200,000. I am surprised their price is low for the plug in, since they offer a lot less for that $200,000. To their credit they have sold cars and given auto mags drivable prototypes for review. I hear they have only sold around 15 cars to the public. That is better then zero. :)
http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/coupe/112_0511_2006_fisker_tramonto/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisker
Posted by: hampden wireless | 05 September 2007 at 07:13 PM
Henrik,
I think you are bang on with the niche market thing, but saying that the Tesla has limited driving range is inaccurate if it does what they say it does. It can go 250 miles between charges and charge its batteries to 85% of full capacity in less than ten minutes. Or have I read something wrong?
Posted by: James | 06 September 2007 at 04:04 AM
James I believe I read somewhere that the 250 miles is now down to 200 miles doe to the certification process. They were forced to make it heavier and stronger to pass crash testing. Furthermore, the now 200 miles of range is the range under ideal driving conditions. It is a sports car and I bet that both you and I would drive it like crazy with much acceleration and at high speed. In this case you will get max 100 miles. The 10 minutes charge time is not the Tesla. It is the Phonix and the infrastructure for that is not in place.
Posted by: Henrik | 06 September 2007 at 05:25 AM
James,
The Tesla battery pack capacity is about 50 kWh. If you tried to use a 110V 20A outlet, it would take about a day to charge it. That's why Tesla has a home charger that needs to be installed by an electrician. But that means you'll need to charge the car in your own garage.
Posted by: David | 06 September 2007 at 11:06 AM
This is terrific. When we started Tesla we wanted to make great cars but we also wanted to get the ball rolling in the right direction. As we see it the more competition we have the better.
Posted by: Mike H | 06 September 2007 at 02:44 PM
It can go 250 miles between charges and charge its batteries to 85% of full capacity in less than ten minutes. Or have I read something wrong?
As was said, the range is 200 miles and I've never heard of it hitting 85% of capacity in under 10 minutes. Doesn't sound right at all.
Keep in mind that it doesn't fully discharge (or top off completely, if I undertsand correctly). That's why the energy for a "full" charge is less than the battery pack capacity, which I believe is 56 kWh.
Range - 200 miles
At-plug efficiency - 206 Wh/mile
Energy for "full" charge - 41 kWh
85% of "full" charge - 35 kWh
Amperage of 120V circuit to charge that much in 10 mins - 292 amps
By comparison, the main breaker on my house is 100 amps.
Posted by: jack | 06 September 2007 at 05:08 PM
Why would I want to pay $100,000 for a vehicle with a clutch?
Posted by: richard schumacher | 01 November 2007 at 05:19 AM