The price of the Fisker Ocean couldn’t have been the problem–IMHO–because I am now seeing ultra-expensive Lucid sedans on a regular basis (3 on one day recently), and the also-expensive Rivian pickups and SUVs are beginning to be fairly common in my area. By comparison, I saw one Fisker Ocean, several months ago.
Chapter 11 allows for “restructuring” of debts allowing the business to continue so maybe not the end… Fisker did lay off a number of employees before this filing and was looking for a savior investor to continue the business.
Fisker himself seems to have very poor timing. The Karma came out in the middle of the 2008-09 mess and now the Ocean enters a softening EV market. It didn’t help that the car seemed to be the automotive equivalent of Windows Vista. The software was riddled with bugs. Clearly released before it was ready.
I have a friend working for Fisker. He skipped the layoffs. Maybe not the bankruptcy. But he’s experienced… he’s been through the Delphi bankruptcy with me and jumped the sinking ship as I did. Dry land underfoot is comforting!
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The Ocean received poor reviews. One YouTuber said it’s the worst car he ever reviewed. Henrik Fisker said the problems are mostly due to poor integration of software from several suppliers. Tough darts. That should be solved before releasing the car to the public.
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Worse than the VinFast?
Yikes, the Fisker Ocean must be really bad.
First Fisker was a used car borrowed from a Mitsubishi dealer, they loaned him a press car with the software updates but things that work seamlessly on most cars took several tries, still felt very half baked. I’ve only seen one in person but with no dealers in Washington or Oregon as far as I’m aware it’s not a surprise.
As far as I know, the only Fisker dealer in NJ dropped their Fisker affiliation last year.
That’s the penalty that comes w/being late to the EV game. Even worse when combined with the decreased overall demand for EVs. A radio news program the other day said even Tesla is having to discount prices on their new EV’s.
Demand is still increasing, just not at the previous rate.
In case anyone’s interested, here’s the mid-April 2024 data.
Honda, Mazda, Subaru and Toyota were also late to the EV market, it is not that simple.
Actually, Fisker’s commitment to that part of the automotive market predates many/most other manufacturers. The company was established in 2007, and they began producing cars in 2011.
However, the Fisker company was never run well or efficiently, and there were an incredible number of screw-ups along the way. The currently bankrupt corporation is actually a newer iteration of the Fisker company, but it was apparently run just as badly as the earlier iteration of the company.