51.1 F
Laguna Hills
Thursday, Mar 28, 2024
-Advertisement-

Fisker Automotive Works on New Grand Plans

The deep pockets funding Costa Mesa-based Fisker Automotive and Technologies Group LLC’s revival have led the automaker to test several technologies and features as it prepares to relaunch its luxury hybrid Karma.

Andrew Shune, Fisker’s senior electromagnetic compatibility specialist, has been armed with an “unlimited budget” to improve performance, lower costs, and boost efficiencies, according to President Roger Brown.

That’s a welcome change for Shune, who joined the company in 2009.

“The major difference is good management and support financially,” he said in his testing lab at Fisker’s Costa Mesa headquarters, “unlike five years ago when everything was about money.”

Fisker was acquired in February in a bankruptcy court auction for $149.2 million in cash by Wanxiang America Corp., the Elgin, Ill.-based unit of Wanxiang Group Corp., one of the largest auto parts makers in China and headed by billionaire founder and chairman Lu Guanqiu.

Shune is busy testing a quick-charging battery that provides 80% of power for the Karma in a 20-minute charge, a process that took about three hours in the initial Karma release. He’s also excited to talk up a new solar roof that can power four to five miles of driving per day, roughly 12% to 15% of an average commute.

Longtime automotive executive James Taylor, who’s worked at GM and startups, has seen many electric vehicle makers come and go.

“A high percentage died trying because they ran out of cash,” said the former president of Cadillac who recently joined Fisker as vice president of manufacturing and purchasing. “A huge advantage we have with Wanxiang is they put a huge amount of resources behind this in a major way. Cash should be the least of our problems.”

Cash was a major problem for the old Fisker, which burned through more than $1 billion in venture capital funding and government loans, becoming a punching bag for politicos, auto critics, and the press as it spiraled into bankruptcy.

Online Shopping Madness

The numbers are in: Cyber Monday capped a record five-day stretch of online holiday shopping, according to data crunchers at IBM who analyzed 370 performance indicators.

IBM reported that overall online sales increased 12.6% from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, the busiest shopping day of the year, with purchases from mobile devices up 27.2% compared to a year ago. For the first time, mobile buys accounted for more than half of all sales through the five-day period known as “Cyber Week.”

Cyber Monday mobile traffic accounted for 41.2% of all online traffic, up 30.1% from last year, with the average spend being $124.21, according to IBM. Total sales on Cyber Monday topped a record $2 billion, up 17% from a year earlier, according to analytics service provider comScore Inc. in Reston, Va.

That should be welcome news for Vizio Inc. and storage products maker Western Digital Corp., both of which are based in Irvine and had several products tied to retail promotions.

Software Maker Lauded

Irvine-based security software maker SecureAuth Corp. was among the winners of the Red Herring’s Global 100, which honors private technology companies and entrepreneurs for financial health, investor record, market size, innovation, management strength and customer acquisition.

SecureAuth, which beat out competitors from more than 1,000 companies from 40-plus nations, was lauded for fundamentally changing how large corporations use IT to transform businesses.

The company is on a hiring spree after recently securing an additional $10 million in venture funding, bringing the total to about $30 million from prior backers, including Irvine-based Toba Capital.

Want more from the best local business newspaper in the country?

Sign-up for our FREE Daily eNews update to get the latest Orange County news delivered right to your inbox!

-Advertisement-

Featured Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-

Related Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-