As a Texan, the question I ask every time I step inside a car is the same: “Where in the Sam Hill am I supposed to put the gigantic Stetson hat that I wear literally everywhere I go?” Finally, I may have found a potential answer: the new Fisker Alaska, which could bring a needed dose of electric joy to the budding small pickup truck market.
We caught a glimpse of this truck earlier this month when Fisker showed off a few of its planned future models at its first-ever Product Vision Day. Along with the affordable Pear mini-crossover and Ronin four-door convertible sports car, the Alaska truck showed that the nascent EV brand—legendary designer Henrik Fisker’s second foray into car company ownership—has some big plans.
And now we have more details today on the Alaska, and I have to say it seems very promising. That’s if it ever goes into production; Fisker’s still a startup getting over its early-stage humps with its first EV, the Ocean. But there’s certainly room for a truck like the Alaska, and this thing has a lot going for it.
It’s all-electric, powered by either a 75 kWh or a 113 kWh battery pack (which is reasonably big these days.) Depending on the configuration, its range is between 230 and 340 miles. The zero to 60 mph dash “will range from 3.9 to 7.2 seconds.” So like, Camaro SS or Toyota Camry. Got it.
At 17.4 feet or 209 inches in length, it’s longer than a Hyundai Santa Cruz but not as long as a Chevrolet Colorado. That’s a good size—livable but reasonably compact. Fisker says it’s meant to be the brand’s “everything” vehicle: “sporty handling and driving dynamics combined with luxury SUV comfort and everything that discerning buyers in the booming pickup-truck market expect.”
I’ll tell you what I, as a discerning buyer, expect, and it’s a space for my damn hat. And the Fisker Alaska delivers in spades:
Outstanding.
There are a lot of other clever features here, which so far Fisker’s really carving a reputation for (the Ocean has a “California Mode” button that drops all the windows and sunroof at once, for example.) The Alaska boasts the world’s largest cupholder, capable of sustaining a Big Gulp; cockpit storage for your work gloves; and a bed that expands at the push of a button, Chevy Avalanche style, from 4.5 to 7.5 feet.
No word on exact pricing yet but Fisker says it’s expected to start at $45,400 before any tax incentives, which it should get because the company claims it’ll be built in the U.S. Presumably, that will be at the Foxconn plant in Lordstown, Ohio. Right now it’s building the Ocean at the Magna Steyr factory in Graz, Austria, and Fisker has told me it could depend on this “asset-light” contract manufacturing setup for a while.
While I tend to be cautious about most EV startups and Fisker has a lot to prove, I do think it’s working on some cool ideas and I think there’s a huge market for a more affordable EV truck than the stuff we’ve seen so far. I hope they pull it off. I have to hang my hat somewhere.
All photos: Fisker
Interesting vehicle, but I’m not getting too excited yet with the hurdles Fisker still has to clear. Either way, I hope other makers join the mid gate bandwagon.
Enormous wheels, tiny windows… are we sure Adrian didn’t design this? (I kid, I kid!)
Seriously, the body-to-greenhouse ratio of this car is way off. The sills of those gunslit windows are way too high – and that is coming from a happy Dodge Magnum owner!
Put the bench seat in the front like the pear and I’ll trade my model 3 in today. I really like having an EV, especially because I charge for free at work, but I have 4 kids and have needed to be able to put the whole family in my car instead of the 7 passenger family car several times (blown out tire an hour before leaving for a long trip that the spare wouldn’t be ok for, recall driven 3 week shop time, etc).
We’ve been back and forth about trading in for another 6-8 passenger suv but I don’t want to go back to paying for gas and the 3 row Y is simply too much money. Build this with a bench, get it under $45k and I’ll be the first in line
If it does get built, it may undercut the Lightning and whatever Chevy calls their $100k electric behemoth, but no way you’ll ever see one of these at $45k. This is $60-70k all day.
I know it is not designed for the market it was named after, but no one in Alaska wears a cowboy hats. The official hat is either a worn baseball cap under a Carhartt hoodie or one made of beaver pelts.
45k for an EV pickup with a midgate? Boy we can hope, but boy am I skeptical. It’s hard to imagine a startup is going to be able to sell this for what everyone else is trying (and failing) to sell compact EV crossovers for.
As for giant hat storage, that seems like a great way to render the rear view mirror useless and rear passenger view forward unlikely. Luckily for me, unlike Turd Ferguson, I typically leave my large foam cowboy hat at home.
TELL ME YOU MOVED HERE FROM CALIFORNIA WITHOUT TELLING ME YOU MOVED HERE FROM CALIFORNIA
Texan: “Where do I put my hat?”
Californian: (in fake vaguely country cowboyish John Wayne accent) “Where in the Sam Hill am I supposed to put my gigantic Stetson hat that I wear literally everywhere I go?”
The former is a question. The latter is script.
Well done.
It’s difficult to break through the deep meh-ness of seeing another ready to fail brand , but FWIW i hope they succeed making something affordable
I never liked Mr Fisker’s designs, but jeez the beltline height is cartoonish. Guys, crew cab short beds with extremely high beds are crap at being pickups!
“All hat, no cattle . . .”
Patrick, I’m aware there was a press event of production-representative vehicles with the Fisker Ocean out in Austria near Magna-Steyr. When are you expecting press vehicles for the Ocean to be available in the US?
Great question. I know they had a launch recently (Wired and Motor Trend and a few others covered it) but I haven’t a clue when they’ll scale their press fleets. It could be a while.
Tesla did that for a little bit early on, around 2017 to 2020 it still dealt with the media, but now it doesn’t do so at all; Lucid and Rivian have a few press fleet cars around but they’re obviously smaller in scale than the big OEMs. I’m in one of the bigger markets (NYC) so I hope one will happen my way soon. I am very curious to drive the Ocean.
Big Gulp.
You are differentiating yourself with the Big Gulp?
Great start, great start.
Awesome, another car-truck with a bed liftover height at 66 inches. They’ll sell a ton of them.
5ft 6 guy here. Holding desperately to my 25 yr old S10.
6’1″ guy here. Excessively tall bedside heights are annoying if you’re shorter than Shaq.
Hakeem Olajuwon here. I agree.
Hmm, if I can be convinced these are not POS’s, this is a pretty appealing package. Mid-gates rule. The Maverick should have one.
The “California mode” is not new: the Renault Avantime had it too, albeit without the name.
As did my 93 ls400
My boring Odyssey does it too
this comment deserves way more lols
looks cool.
Fan of small pickups, and midgates. What I notice from the pictures, looks like it has serious wheel well room for suspension articulation, suggesting off road capable, but oversize wheels and low profile tires aren’t good for that. Front and rear images make bumpers look substantial, but profile view shows nearly flush with body panels, resulting in the Rivian problem. Why? BMW is the worst offender of oversize grills on EVs that have no need for them, and I don’t understand why designers aren’t taking advantage of that styling freedom and greatly improving forward visibility and aero.
I love it but it will need to beat pretty substantial odds to ever become a real thing
I think 10/15 yrs from now there will be a quite a few EV orphans on the road, with little support. I imagine it was like that for ICE cars a hundred years ago, except they were much simpler and could be repaired by blacksmiths and artisans.
Extinct Car Brand days at car shows are a hoot. As are exhibitions at museums.
There were 98 car brands based in the United States in 1929, and that was a reduction from a considerably higher number. By 1940, it was down 44.
I think at its peak, the number of car brands in the US was nearly 2000.
Also forgot Cadillac for majors.
Lordstown I put in the, “other” bucket right now. Sort of like… Panoz, Local Motors, Polaris, Meyers Max, Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus, Superformance, etc. of which there are still probably close to 100 very small volume manufacturers. Granted, AM General still exists.
Though seriously, think of all the rando things like Elio, Aptera, Canoo, etc. … and imagine nearly 2000 of them. With everyone and their sibling trying to start an automotive company. That’s what 120 years ago was like.
And what better place to put a giant cup holder than right in front of the mallarding center stack!
Have we learned nothing?!
https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/2025-fisker-alaska-108-64de429067a8a.jpg?crop=1xw:1xh;center,top&resize=980:*
If it’s any consolation it looks like the giant cup holder is just an adapter that fits in two regular-sized cup holders in the console.
The hat holder at least gives it one practicality point over a Cybertruck. Rivian wins this round with a Net Utility Truck Score of -4 to Teslas of -5.
Yeah, but aftermarket hat holders have been a thing for decades, if its something you need in your truck, its something you can add to anything for like $20 and 4 minutes of work in the driveway, basically, not a feature that would factor into anyone’s purchase decision on a new vehicle.
As a regular wearer of brimmed hats who was unaware of the existence of aftermarket hat holders you just changed my life.
Fisker 5 car companies 0 cars. What could go wrong?
Oh man i laughed. I didnt realise the number was above 2
And who thinks Fisker will be in business in 5 years? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
I hope I gave this the right amount of skepticism! I like the stuff Fisker’s coming up with but it’s hard out there for all the startup EV companies, and even those have factories. I’m not sure Fisker’s plan to go all-contract (at least at first) has long-term legs, but we’ll see. I also worry quality could be all over the map with that plan.
I think the Fisker Santa Rivian at least passes the eye test and I like the expanding bed trick. Remember when the Santa Cruz concept had an expanding bed, suicide doors, a diesel option, manual transmission … you get the idea. The real questions are can Fisker actually get to production, how much of the whiz bang will remain, and can they hold the line on cost. Hope so.
You make excellent points. And the magic 8 ball says “you will be greatly dissappointed”
I imagine if this ever finds its way to production it will just be another “whoops we’re only making the top trim and it starts at $70,000 lol” situation, unfortunately. Maybe we can just beg Hyundai to electrify the Santa Cruz instead…
The fact that Fisker’s remarks seem focused on 0-60 time, range, and luxury appointments with nary a word about payload, towing (its electric, so that’s probably nil), etc. shows where they’re focused. That’s OK, just know what you’re buying – a car.
90% or more of the people who buy trucks in this country don’t need them anyway, so I’m perfectly fine with stuff like this existing and I find it way more appealing for my needs than some huge BOF monstrosity anyway.
Damn, I’ve been behind the 8-ball for years.
Interested in the push button bed extension. I think most of this truck isn’t for me, but if they sold that tech to one of the big three they could make a lot of money, hell, sell it to everyone.
It is a small RV slideout.
If the batteries catch on fire, will it be a Baked Alaska?
*golf clap*
Hat’s off to you on this one
With a place to pull it from!
Here 18 smiley faces. COTD should be based on smiley faces.