Fisker, "Success," and Vapor-ride-sation

Yahoo Finance spit this out today, but it's re-purposed from BizWeek. The topline is that there were some successful startups amid the carnage that was finance in 2008. Among them, Fisker Automotive.

OK, Fisker might amount to something. Someday. But I was scratching my head at the following listing:

Fisker Automotive

Irvine, Calif.
Founders: Henrik Fisker and Bernhard Koehler
VC investment over the last four quarters: $90.5 million

Henrik Fisker and Bernhard Koehler met at BMW, where both worked as auto designers (Fisker is credited with designing the Z8). In 2007, they founded Fisker to build plug-in hybrid luxury cars, with the goal of selling to car buyers who want to improve their impact on the environment but not have to make a compromise when it comes to style. The 45-employee company, which is still in the development stage, is predicting the recession will improve by midyear 2009 and that consumers will be turning to eco-friendly cars for good, explains Fisker spokesperson Russell Datz.

"...still in the development stage...predicting the recession will improve by midyear 2009...consumers will be turning to econ-friendly cars for good..." And by gumption, when Fisker gets out of the development stage and the recessions clears and consumers make the final switch, it's...sure to be the luxe-statement Fisker sleds they go for!

What gibberish! The whole friggin' thing was written off whatever Russell Datz supplied. Note as well that if BizWeek's numbers are correct, and if $90.5 bil is what Fisker has burned so far, then they are FAR from the average cost of developing a new vehicle, much less a paradigm-busting exotic EV.