The Fisker Ocean EV Is Dirt Cheap. Don’t Buy One.

Andrew Moseman
5 min read
21
In this article:

I’ve been saying lately that a tipping point for EVs will be the electric family crossover that can compete on price with the emperors of suburbia, the ubiquitous Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4, which both start around $30,000. Suddenly, there is one. Although I cannot in good faith recommend it.

The troubled electric vehicle startup Fisker has slashed the price of its basic Ocean EV to just $24,999 in a desperate bid to sell enough vehicles to stave off bankruptcy. The Ocean is now the cheapest EV on the American market. The high-end Ocean Extreme, with a dual motor setup and zero-to-60 time under four seconds, has been discounted from $61,499 to just $37,499.

Fisker might sell a few of these EVs to buyers looking for an offer they can’t refuse, and those sales might keep the lights on a little longer for a company that was recently shamed by historically bad reviews and delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. But all the signs say the flashy electric vehicle startup will run out of juice at any moment.

This wasn’t Henrik Fisker’s first try. Back in 2007, the Danish car designer who made his name at legacy carmakers founded Fisker Automotive, a company that would produce the fish-mouthed Fisker Karma. That car was a luxury take on the range-extended EV, or a vehicle that uses an on-board gas-powered generator to refill the batteries, thus extending its range.

Karma had the looks. Many auto enthusiasts at the time heralded its design. (The car chaps at Top Gear loved it.) Fisker teased future models that would position it as a rival to Tesla, which was still selling small numbers in the days before the Models 3 and Y. But the company didn’t have the follow-through. A series of setbacks, including the bankruptcy of its battery supplier, sent Fisker Automotive on the road to bankruptcy.

Lapses in quality control didn’t help. In 2012, the Karma delivered to Consumer Reports for its car testing program broke down upon arrival, requiring a battery replacement before the car could be driven. It earned a failing grade because of “numerous shortcomings, not just a single or even few flaws.” While Fisker the company bit the dust in 2013, Fisker the man would carry on — though saddled with a reputation as a dreamer who, to put it generously, did not have the attention to detail for a startup company to succeed.

Things looked rosier for Fisker, Inc., the second-chance company he launched in 2016. Instead of an over-engineered range-extended plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, he announced a plain old EV. The Ocean promised whiz-bang features such as a roof lined with solar panels, two-way charging, and “California Mode” — a single button that opened all the glass panels, allowing the sea breeze to waft through the car as it cruised down the Pacific Coast Highway. Underneath the tech hype, though, was a simple proposition: a mid-size crossover EV listed at a price competitive with others in that popular category.

Once again, trouble found Fisker when the car got closer to reality. The new company went public in 2020, but according to Fortune, “a slew of software, supply chain and regulatory problems” prevented Fisker from moving the first Oceans until 2023. It delivered fewer than 5,000 of the EVs last year, despite building more than 10,000 of them.

Then came the testing. YouTube super-reviewer Marques Brownlee titled his video about the Ocean, “This Is the Worst Car I’ve Ever Reviewed” and spent 20 solid minutes outlining the weirdness of his driving experience, including the company asking him to hold off reviewing the car until it could rush out a software update. More than a decade after its disastrous experience with the Karma, Consumer Reports reported that the Fisker Ocean was “unfinished,” with a “bizarre delivery experience” and “disappearing safety features.”

This disastrous narrative arrived alongside reports of Fisker’s financial ruin. Fisker suspended production of the Ocean and tried to raise $150 million to keep the startup afloat, however a rumored last-second deal with Nissan fell apart and now, despite Henrik Fisker’s promise to press on, it appears the company has no clear lifeline to stave off oblivion.

Given the relatively high cost of current EVs, some buyers might be tempted by the fire-sale Fiskers. As The Autopian says, “the Fisker Ocean is a good car when it’s functional,” and if the company can manage to push out a software update, then perhaps it will be functional more often than not. The 231-mile range of the base model isn’t impressive by 2024 standards, but the Ocean Extreme’s reported 360-mile range is a steal at its steeply discounted price.

Still: This is a capital case of caveat emptor. Given Fisker’s long history of poor build quality and software bugs, it’d be a big risk to pony up even the clearance sale price of an Ocean. Not to mention the huge uncertainty of living with one. It can be hard enough to schedule service for a Tesla; now imagine trying to deal with hardware for software problems for an orphan EV whose company bit the dust.

Read more at Heatmap News:

The Quest to Ban the Best Raincoats in the World

We Fact Checked Everything Trump Has Said About Climate Change Since 2021

Or sign up to receive our best story in your inbox every day here.

Advertisement

Recommended Stories

  • 5 cars from the Beijing auto show that reflect China's vision for the future of driving

    China's vision of the future of the automobile — electrified and digitally connected — is on display at the ongoing Beijing auto show. Organizers say that 117 new models are making their debut at Auto China 2024, which runs through May 4. Xiaomi announced that it had received more than 75,000 orders in the four weeks since the launch of its first car, the SU7, with a list price of 215,900 to 299,900 yuan ($29,800-$41,400).

  • Hertz is done gambling with EVs: It took a first-quarter $195 million hit on Teslas that just keep losing value and can’t sell them fast enough

    Three years ago, investing in a fleet of 100,000 is what helped the car rental company emerge from bankruptcy.

  • Why BYD's EV exports sell for twice the China price

    U.S. and European politicians have raised alarms that their domestic auto industries could be destroyed by a wave of cheap Chinese electric vehicles. The goal: to rake in hefty profit margins the automaker can’t get in China amid fierce competition. In some foreign showrooms, BYD charges more than double — sometimes nearly triple — the price it gets for three key models in China, according to a Reuters review of the automaker’s pricing in five of its biggest export markets.

  • Toyota trials EV pickups in Thailand

    Country is a key south east Asian battleground for electric vehicles

  • Really cold hydrogen could bring driving range parity with diesel

    A startup named for science fiction author Jules Verne is closing in on cryo-compressed hydrogen fuel for greater energy density. The post Really cold hydrogen could bring driving range parity with diesel appeared first on FreightWaves.

  • Used-Car Sales Have Moved Online—Here’s Why Both Customers and Dealers Are Happy

    The migration has armed consumers with much more information and choices. It has done the same for dealerships.

  • Most drivers will pay $15 to enter busiest part of Manhattan starting June 30

    The start date for the $15 toll most drivers will be charged to enter Manhattan's central business district will be June 30, transit officials said Friday. Under the so-called congestion pricing plan, the $15 fee will apply to most drivers who enter Manhattan south of 60th Street during daytime hours. The program, which was approved by the New York state Legislature in 2019, is supposed to raise $1 billion per year to fund public transportation for the city’s 4 million daily riders.

  • Tesla’s AutoPilot Recall Gets New Probe. This Is When to Worry About the Stock.

    The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened an investigation to assess if Tesla’s solution to address a December recall of more than 2 million vehicles to fix its AutoPilot system warnings was good enough. It makes for a good headline—a safety investigator looking at millions of Tesla vehicles over a fix to a self-driving recall—but investors don’t need to worry about the recalls themselves. The impact on consumer confidence, however, is something to consider.

  • Foreign automakers eager for Chinese partners at Beijing auto show

    Global automakers including Volkswagen and Toyota came to this year's Beijing auto show looking to catch up to surging China EV makers that are dominating the world's largest auto market. The show that started this week showcased a marked shift in attitude among some foreign automakers, industry executives said. After being impressed by the bold leaps made by BYD and other Chinese automakers at last year's event in Shanghai, foreign automakers are now avidly searching for Chinese partners and announcing new tie-ups, the executives said.

  • Harley-Davidson Stock Plunges as First-Quarter Retail Sales Disappoint

    Harley-Davidson beat expectations on revenue and earnings but its share price crashed Thursday as global retail sales came in flat despite the introduction of new touring motorcycles. The company reported a 6% gain in North American retail sales with the introduction of new Street Glide and Road Glide motorcycles, though some dealers said most of the bikes they sold were discounted 2023 models. In Europe and Asia, which did not receive the new models until late in the quarter, sales were down by double digits.