Fisker, Fisker, Fisker. Things didn’t go so well, did they? First time around, you built the oddball Karma, and then flopped in 2014. This time, you gave us the troubled Fisker Ocean, before stumbling into bankruptcy after some stinging reviews. Now, the last of your fleet has all gone up in a fire sale.
As reported by Car and Driver, the last Fiskers look set to go to American Lease. The news comes from Fisker’s bankruptcy filing, which noted that the New York rental car firm has agreed to buy 3,231 remaining Ocean SUVs from Fisker in a deal totaling $46.3 million.
Pencil that out, and it comes to just over $14,000 per vehicle. That’s a big discount on an SUV that originally retailed from $40,000 to $70,000 depending on trim. But the reality of the deal is a little more complex than that.
Ultimately, the agreement between American Lease and Fisker sees the former paying anywhere from $2,500 to $16,500 for the remaining vehicles. Price is dependent on vehicle condition; from the average payment, we can assume most are running and driving examples. Indeed, Fisker’s filing states that 2,711 of the Ocean SUVs are in “Good Working Order.” Seldom few reviewers said the same about the Ocean while Fisker was still afloat.
It seems likely the vehicles will be leased to rideshare users, as this makes up the majority of American Lease’s business. The deal is still subject to court approval, among other criteria. A hearing is slated for July 9 on the matter. Fisker has requested the court grant approval to allow it to meet payroll and tax deadlines.
Assuming it goes ahead, American Lease will not be getting any warranty coverage for the vehicles in this deal. Fisker will have “no obligation of repair or maintenance,” according to court filings. However, American Lease will gain access to “all relevant source code or other proprietary software operating elements” that it might need to operate the vehicles. That could include Fisker’s own proprietary service software which could be a great aid to keeping the vehicles going.
Fisker made a Hail Mary play to try and stay in the game earlier this year. The Ocean’s base price plummeted by $14,000 to just $24,999. The higher-end Extreme trim was slashed by $24,000, down to $37,499 in turn. This drastic maneuver had mixed impact. On the one hand, it was a bargain price for a big electric SUV. On the other, the move was so brash that people questioned whether Fisker would be around for long enough to deliver the vehicles, let alone service them. Production soon halted, and when a last-minute lifeline from a major automaker fell through, the writing was on the wall. Fisker’s operations would draw to a close.
The question on many lips is the same: where did Fisker go wrong? A simple answer is that it got involved in the automotive market. It’s a brutal place that does not suffer young and inexperienced players.
It’s true that the past two decades have seen other startups succeed where Fisker has failed. Tesla has become a major automaker churning out over a million cars a year. Rivian has been turning in strong performances of its own, and while Lucid remains a small player, its products are nonetheless well-regarded.
Fisker, on the other hand, fumbled on multiple counts. It produced on the order of 10,000 Ocean SUVs. It’s a number far greater than so many other failed automotive companies, but by no means enough to be sustainable. Deliveries were supposed to begin in 2021, but the vehicle didn’t hit the road until mid-2023. The delay before real sales could start did not help the company.
Beyond that, the Ocean was released with some very real flaws. Perhaps the most concerning were over 100 loss-of-power incidents reported to the NHTSA, a serious safety flaw whichever way you cut it. Marcus Brownlee would later nail the car as the worst car he’d ever reviewed in early 2024, due to a laundry list of quirks and problems that he simply couldn’t ignore. That kicked off a press storm that rained all the way to the company’s bankruptcy filing just a few months later.
The market is never kind to unfinished products that are released too early. Fisker was caught in a bind. It was well overdue to launch the Ocean, but it’s also obvious it wasn’t quite ready, either. One wonders if this is a situation that could have simply been solved if they’d had a lot more money. We may never know.
Matt Hardigree was accused of killing Fisker the first time; some might try and lay the blame at the feet of Marcus Brownlee the second time around. Is that fair? I think not. Companies named Fisker have failed twice, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. There’s a common factor between Fisker Automotive and Fisker Inc., and that’s Henrik Fisker himself. His track record is not astounding, but at least he’s out there having a punt.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the story’s over. One can only suspect Henrik’s already plotting a third go-around, just like a Bond villain who you didn’t see die at the end of the film. Here’s hoping next time he does some kind of amphibious flying speedboat. We’ll be waiting.
Image credits: Fisker, David Tracy
P.S. Thank you to Fisker and their webhost for keeping the Newsroom site up until now. Without it, I would have struggled to put this article together. And, credit to all of you at the company. You’ve built far more cars than I ever have, or ever will.
“One wonders if this is a situation that could have simply been solved if they’d had a lot more money.”
“Simply having a lot more money” solves many business problems (especially with startups!). But in this case I don’t think more money would have helped. The product was late enough that customers lost interest. A stellar launch can sometimes make up for time/cost overruns. But that is not what Fisker had.
Once the Ocean finally arrived, it didn’t work well enough to regain interest. If anything, Fisker’s reputation *dropped* after the launch. Not only did it become clear their product wouldn’t compete well in the market, it prompted awkward questions about why Fisker decided to launch a half-finished product. That tanked interest further.
You can’t buy your way out of that kind of bad publicity…
Hey, “seldom few” isn’t a phrase 🙂
The glare off the screens in that interior picture is why all of my vehicles are a decade old with “dated” matte finish screens and hooded gauge clusters.
His name is Marques not Marcus.
Marcus is his evil twin >:)
I have a bit of experience with this. I was on the waiting list to get a Fisker. I was not interested in the top of the line launch edition car whatsoever as I liked the specs of the base FWD model and it was actually a pretty good value in Canada.
So I waited to be able to order. Then in the fall of 2022 I received an email saying I was able to order my car. I was genuinely interested and went to their site quickly. The configurator would only let me order the top of the line model – my model was nowhere to be seen as an option. Yet the email said I could order my Fisker model.
About a week later Fisker released an apology letter about this. I was disappointed and annoyed with this bait and switch email. It was poorly handled and the apology was half assed at best.
The main reason they got in trouble? I believe the idiots built custom order top of the line model vehicles on spec without actual orders from customers. For a few months after that email to order I would hop on the configurator and noticed they always pushed hard towards preset configurations for the top of line model. I found that really weird since they should be only building upon order. But instead only preconfigured models seemed to available with reasonable delivery timelines.
So it was clear to me they were building cars without firm orders. That is so stupid for a startup with cash flow issues. The mantra any capital intense startup should follow is “cash flow, cash flow, cash flow.”
They built 10,000 vehicles. The only way you end with 4000 car is inventory is you built the cars without firm orders. That is a lot of capital to tie up.
Lets do some math. 4000 cars. As they were the top tier models, lets assume they cost $50,000 to build. That is $200,000,000 of capital!! It gets worse if the cars were even more expensive to build.
That is what killed Fisker quickly. If they had been careful and only built on order they probably would still be at least operating. Long term it would have been tough, but throwing $200 million into built on spec inventory made their demise inevitable.
I think a problem with that is they don’t actually produce the vehicles themselves, they were contracted out the Magna Steyr. I have to imagine that they have to produce vehicles in batches, they can’t wait for individual orders to come in. Plus, people tend to buy cars they can acquire immediately, not wait for.
The overall problem is Mr. Fisker seems to be able to design a beautiful car (the Karma was jaw droppingly attractive in person, and I saw a car hauler load of Oceans in NC and found them to be attractive as well,) but not run a car company.
I actually saw one of these this past week in my area. I didn’t get a great look as it was passing by in the opposite direction, but it was pretty sharp looking. So it had that going for it at least.
I saw one today, and at first I wasn’t sure what it was, based off the slit tail lights, then I realized it was a Fisker.
*shouting helplessly into the void*
See, when I was down on DT’s review that was largely smiles and sunshine about what an Ocean could be, this is part of what I was on about. The car being driven was not supposed to be preproduction, it had serious, potentially dangerous issues, build quality and physical flaws, and those largely got papered over as “but they can fix a lot OTA!”
Not if they release a half-baked turd* that sucks so hard it pulls the company down with it they can’t.
Optimism is a rare trait, and I have very little myself, but you have GOT to touch base with reality when it comes to what a vehicle is, in your hands right at that moment. Not what it might be, not what it could be with some software patches, assuming the company decides to even try to fix it, further assuming the whole company doesn’t founder first.
I’ll reiterate that I appreciate the hell out of him otherwise, but I would not base a vehicle purchase on his reviews even a little bit.
*Note to self: use Tesla auto cleaning to make sure turds are EXTRA HOT in the future
Companies named Fisker have failed thrice. Wonder who gets the blame for Fisker Coachbuild selling only 15 cars out of the 300 they planned to make?
Oh, and Henrik Fisker was also the “F” in VLF Automotive- how many Destinos have you ever seen out and about in traffic?
I know this is stupid, juvenile and pointless, but I just can’t read the name Fisker without thinking they make pet food. Just like Stellantis. I think of some sort of expensive medication that probably doesn’t work. I need reprogramming…
If you have trouble with Romeoid Alfitis, talk to your doctor to see if Stellantis is right for you.
I was thinking shears/scissors TBH.
If there’s prototype Alaska lurking out there somewhere, I’d be interested.
I’m curious how this works out. This lease company basically has to finish developing this car.
If they hire an engineer or two from Fisker and tell them to strip out the extras and not worry about the aesthetics of the interfaces, this could be the electric version of a checker.
Can the passenger area be easily hosed out to clean it?
This would be perfect, and I’d want one.
Me too. I was interested when they dropped the prices. If they had been anywhere near usable I may have scooped one.
The worst part about electric cars is that they are never just ‘cars’ as we have come to expect. They’re not just a physical machine that operates independently of the outside world as long as the parts are functional and there is fuel.
Everything seems to be interconnected and linked back to the mothership. Any interruption at any stage of that connectivity can brick the vehicle. I know this is somewhat true for many ICE vehicles, but it seems true across the board for all modern EVs.
I’m great with a wrench and even pretty good with a multimeter. Heck, I’ll even tune an ECU. I’m not so good with an oscilloscope or with debugging someone else’s software. Maybe these things will become more accessible over time, but for now I find them intimidating.
Amen brother. The skills to keep one of these on the road is way past my capability.
…and as the LEAF demonstrates, there’s no need for that crap! I mean sure, they use CANBus like most modern cars, but from an engineering perspective, the only Mothership Connection an EV should actually need is by P-Funk.
At $14,000, I’d take the risk. If one had full access to all the software, the DIY community would have fun with it.
Step 1, remove all nannies.
Step 2, remove all safety controls except ABS.
Step 3, is this even possible?
I think these manufacturers are assuming that the venn diagram of people who want electric cars and people who are extremely technologically connected is just a single circle. It is not.
I, for one, really appreciate the battery and motor tech of Tesla, but hate the “FSD” tech and stupid fucking touchscreen interior.
If I could simply replace my DD e36’s engine and transmission with an electric powertrain, I would. That car is literally all the comfort I need.
You’re right obviously.And it makes me wonder no one has jumped into the Tesla modification business.
Surely there’s a market for gauge clusters and physical controls? Is reverse engineering of software particularly tricky?
Now there’s a YouTube idea if I’ve ever heard one!
You can probably hose it out once…then the water leaking through to the batteries will turn the Fisker in a 4th of July Celebration Edition.