Henrik Fisker is known for creating luxury cars like the BMW Z8, Aston Martin V8 Vantage and Aston Martin DB9, as well as electric vehicles.
Now he wants to add batteries to his wheelhouse.
The Los Angeles resident – a world-renowned auto designer and one-time manufacturer – filed a patent this month for a new type of flexible, solid-state battery technology that he says will be able to charge electric vehicles in under a minute in a few years.
The offering comes from his new company, Newport Beach-based Fisker Inc., a designer and manufacturer of electric vehicles. Fisker publicly launched in October of 2016 after operating in stealth mode for two years.
“I’m excited about this new milestone in battery technology,” Fisker said. “This is going to change the automotive industry, and we’ll see more electric vehicles on the road.”
Fisker said the long charging times are a key reason electric vehicles haven’t seen mass adoption.
“We’re having people wait 20 to 30 minutes for a charge compared to a few minutes for gas-driven vehicles. Of course people would prefer to be off on their way instead of waiting.”
The technology will give electric cars a range of 500 miles on a single charge, he said, and he sees potential uses in other products including computers, cell phones and chargers.
Fisker anticipates the technology will be ready for automotive applications around 2023. Until then, the company plans to establish logistics and manufacturing supply chains as well as scale up battery testing.
The company is gearing up to debut its electric vehicle, the Fisker EMotion, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nev. in January. The car has a range of 400 miles on a single charge while its competitor, Tesla Inc.’s Model S, has a range of 300 miles. The EMotion starts at $129,000.
It’s not Henrik Fisker’s first time around the track with electric vehicles.
Three years ago, Fisker filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy of Fisker Automotive Inc., which sold to China’s Wanxiang Group in February 2014.
Ventures in Cannabis
Century City-based investment firm Archytas Ventures this month closed a $5 million investment round into Xtraction Services, a cannabis oil extracting company.
Archytas principals Antony Radbod and David Kivitz said their company, which launched in March, was looking for legal cannabis operators in real estate and equipment sectors as well as in the larger ancillary market for potential investments.
Archytas’ investments range between $2 million and $20 million per transaction, according to the company’s website.
Xtraction, based in Mascotte, Fla., provides fully-automated extraction machines.
“Most cannabis-related businesses have capital constraints,” said Kivitiz. “A lot of the companies in this space don’t have outrageous valuations, so it’s a good time to get into the business.”
The latest round was Archytas’s second investment into cannabis-related companies.
The company put an undisclosed amount in Medford, Ore-based Halo Labs, a cannabis oil processor, last month.
“We produce the finest concentrates in the market, that starts with our own pesticide free cultivation of over 30 strains, and generates extremely high-quality oils,” Kiran Sidhu, chief executive of Halo Labs, said in a statement when the deal was announced.
Radbod said given the uncertainty related to the current political environment, the company expects to launch only one or two portfolio companies in the next year.
Port Grants
The Port of Long Beach received a $2.4 million grant this month from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to help reduce emissions.
The grant, provided under the Diesel Emission Reduction Act, will go toward retrofitting three cranes and four tugboats to be emissions-free, or to operate with the cleanest available equipment, port officials said.
Part of the grant is going toward Pier J, run by Stevedoring Services of America, whose main contractor, Switzerland-based Cavotec, will retrofit its cranes to operate with near or zero-emissions, said port spokesman Lee Peterson.
The equipment is scheduled to be in place by 2019.
Staff reporter Shwanika Narayan can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 556-8351.
