LOS ANGELES — Remember Fisker automotive?

It’s the Southern California start-up electric car company that went bust in 2013. Now, the man behind that company is back with a new company simply called Fisker that’s producing a new electric SUV, but, will it succeed this time? 

LA Times business reporter Russ Mitchell wrote about how Henrik Fisker hopes to make it work.

Henrik Fisker is considered a top-notch automobile designer. He went to school at the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena. He designed the BMW C8, and he designed Aston Martin cars, which are the James Bond cars.

Fisker was even commissioned to design Tesla’s Model S, but he was booted. A legal battle ensued. According to LA Times business reporter Russ Mitchell, if you take closer look at the Model S model, you will find Fisker’s influence in the car’s design.

In 2007, Fisker founded Fisker Karma to make his own hybrid car, but it ran into various problems. The main issue was it was a little early in lithium-ion batteries, and the battery supplier had problems. That caused production problems, and sales problems that eventually lead to bankruptcy.

“He sold that company to Chinese investors, moved on, and started simply “Fisker, and that’s where we are today,” added Mitchell.

Fisker is originally from Denmark, but he loves California, specifically Southern California.

He came up with the Fisker Karma idea when he was sitting at the beach in Malibu by himself watching the sunset. He came up with the logo seen on the Fisker Karma but now also seen on the new car, which is to be called the Fisker Ocean.

“It’s a crossover SUV, which is a departure from his usual design style. You wouldn’t automatically recognize it immediately as a Fisker product. If you look closely, you can see references to his old work. In my opinion, it is a beautiful looking electric car. It’s not due to come out until 2022, and we will see if it is actually produced,” said Mitchell.

Fisker is counting on a California-inspired environmental ethos to set the Fisker Ocean apart. It will include a vegan interior using recycled materials: old tires, plastic bottles, recovered plastic from the ocean, and even old fishing nets. 

The press of a single button will put the car in “California Mode,” lowering all windows at once, including the window on the rear hatch.

“The base price as advertised now is $37,500, which is very low for a car that will be luxury or near-luxury, with all kinds of amenities. However, the range will go up to $70,000,” said Mitchell.

Fisker plans to keep capital costs low by using extra capacity at an existing automaker’s plant, but no deal has been announced yet. Fisher engineers had been working on breakthrough solid-state battery technology, but the Fisker Ocean car will use commodity lithium-ion batteries, aided by a Fisker-developed battery management software system.