I admire Henrik Fisker’s adaptability. When he realized that the high end market didn’t want reskinned German cars, he put his business plans int he greenwasher and emerged with cash-in-hand. Fisker decided he wanted to build a beautiful, powerful hybrid car– and that’s just what he wants to build. The Karma is quite an achievement, in terms of design, technology, and convincing someone to give Fisker millions of dollars. But then there’s the sanctimonious EcoBabble™. One of our Best and Brightest emailed me an excerpt from the brochure today, and the bits about the interior trim, well, judge for yourself. “Wood trim is recovered from trees found in America’s wilds: Fallen Trees™ that have succumbed to age; Rescued Trees™ burned in forest fires; and Sunken Trees™ lying on lake bottoms.” “Recylable EcoGlass™, made from naturally occurring sand…” “The EcoSport™ series incorporates hand-wrapped premium leather processed using a 100 percent sustainable Happy Cow™ manufacturing strategy…” If a tree falls in the forest, but no one trademarks it…
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Is there a way to obtain leather from live cows? I didn’t think so…I’m guessing the cow is not at all pleased to be a Fisker steering wheel…that’s a little flaw in the Happy Cow manufacturing strategy, wouldn’t you say?
Oh! No! The Happy Cow is now with 17 shaven virgins in cow heaven. That is a happy cow!
Eik. This sort of EcoBabble™ behaviour makes it that much harder to bring the average citizen around to thinking responsibly. It also tends to attract the most vacuous people in the world; Hollywood.
I’m sure don1967 will have something to add.
So, we now have a sustainability argument based on sand……..
Hilarious.
I do admire the Karma, though. From what I can tell, it’s an innovative design that pushes the envelope of what people have done with serial hybrids. I’m thinking about buying one.
Hollywood™ ? Wat? haha.
The love the classic Fisker coupe. So does Hollywood, but you’ll never catch them enjoying such a car on camera.
I think the Calfornia Cheese promotion board already has the trademark on HappyCows.
made from naturally occurring sand… WTF?! what other kind of sand is there?
Ironically given the long and inefficient supply chains on custom low volume stuff like this it likely has more of a total carbon footprint than if they just used the conventional stuff.
Hey, so the guy’s a little eccentric…cut him some slack. From what I’ve read (ok, not an expert) he seems like a pretty affable guy and he certainly means well. He’s put together a couple of legitimate prototypes and it appears he’s got the chops to take this thing a ways. We’re in an environment where we need to let ideas play out a bit before we get all up in his reptillian grill.
They need to hire an IP attorney. Let’s see, EcoSport is a registered trademark of Hyundai (SN 77614128). EcoGlass is a registered trademark of 3Form Inc. EcoBase is a registered trademark of PPG for vehicle paint (SN 77603757). By the way, EcoBabble is a registered trademark of Atlas Embroidery of Coral Springs FL.
I can almost guarantee that a C&D will be in the mail from Hyundai/Lackenbach Siegel if they see that document. PPG might go after them as well.
dgduris,
Oh! No! The Happy Cow is now with 17 shaven virgins in cow heaven. That is a happy cow!
I haven’t laughed that hard since I first laid my eyes on Baby Mangino…
mcs, I think you’re being too cautious. Fisker has a pretty good intellectual property law firm. At least for litigation. They sure cleaned Adam Belsky’s firm’s clock in the Tesla-Fisker arbitration.
Were I at Fisker I wouldn’t worry at this stage about trademark infringement. Especially for such duds as Happy Cow and the Fallen/Sunken/Rescued Trees. Nice to see, though, that someone trained this marketing person to use the TM designation. But you can bet none of those trademarks will last long. They’re terrible.
Also, from what I saw Hyundai does not have a registered trademark for EcoSport, just a fairly new trademark application. Ford actually had an EcoSport product and applied for a trademark, since abandoned. And the EcoGlass trademark is for building materials, not cars. If Fisker really wants to develop an Eco—- line of trademarks for cars, I certainly wouldn’t give up on it yet.
But I just love to read this kind of stuff. ”Wood trim is recovered from trees found in America’s wilds: Fallen Trees™ that have succumbed to age; Rescued Trees™ burned in forest fires; and Sunken Trees™ lying on lake bottoms.” And then the Happy Cows.
It’s got to be a joke, right? This can’t be serious, can it?
[Update — it’s serious all right. At least the Fallen/Sunken/Rescued Trees part of it. Found some references on the Internet to Fisker only using wood from “non-living trees.” Could not see anything about “naturally occurring sand” or Happy Cows though. (Although I assume and hope the leather comes from non-living cows.) This is the kind of thing that Hollywood seems to love and the rest of us can’t read without a giggle.]
There is a lot of recovered mahogony on the bottom of the great lakes. We bought some for the interior of our boat. Really beautiful stuff. With the mohogany and Teak forests dwindling, it is about the only way to get good pieces of wood.
See also the high end guitar manufacturers. Some of these woods are getting exceptionally rare.
The EcoSport is sold by Ford here in Brazil. It is a Ford Fiesta (not the European Fiesta) trying to be a CUV. Women love it here. http://images.google.com/images?q=ford+ecosport
But I suppose that doesn’t mean they have TM’ed it in the US as well.
tesla deathwatcher : Also, from what I saw Hyundai does not have a registered trademark for EcoSport, just a fairly new trademark application.
Whoops, you’re right – it is an application. I suppose I can blame it on the late hour.
Although, from personal experience I can tell you that it’s surprising what sort of litigation this can attract. It’s fine if you’re large, but when you’re small it can consume valuable time. If Hyundai and PPG have their applications approved, Fisker will have problems. I’ve received some really bizarre C&D’s that were a huge stretch, but as frivolous as they were (to the point they apologized and compensated me) I still had to deal with them.
The EcoGlass mark is only a problem in that they should have used the registered mark instead of TM and credited 3Form. I looked at 3Forms EcoGlass and Fisker’s press release and it seems so similar that I am 99% certain Fisker is using their product and accidentally left out the registered mark.
http://www.3-form.com/materials-glass-pressed-fossil_leaf_spade_pressed.php
Here’s a link to their press releases where some of this comes from. It would have been classier to skip the trademarking.
http://karma.fiskerautomotive.com/news_items
http://www.happycow.com.au/about_us.html
As an amateur woodworker, I know that there’s not a lot of really good wood out there. These days most wood is farmed and due to the rapid tree growth, the grain isn’t half as nice as that of trees that were around a hundred or more years ago.
There’s a big business in recovering those logs that sank after being harvested in the 19th century. The oxygen-poor environment at the bottom of the rivers and lakes does a fabulous job of preserving the logs. We woodworkers tend to foam at the mouth when we see this stuff.
I don’t know what I find more humerous, the Happy Cow leather or the Ecoglass from naturally occurring sand. regrading the trees, the environmentalists in California will fight you if you try to harvest lumber following a forest fire, as you are removing important nutrients from the forest rather than letting them naturally decay and replenish the soil. I’m sure they would fight the other wood recovery methods mentioned in the Fiskar Eco blather.