2012 Fisker Karma Ecostandard on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Fisker Ocean electric SUV rife with serious problems, internal documents show

On a typically sunny day in Los Angeles last June, Henrik Fisker choked up as he handed over his company's first all-electric SUVs in the United States. "I'm really kind of emotional about it, because we've been waiting two-and-a-half years for this, and everyone here has done a tremendous job," the founder and CEO said. The day had started on a celebratory note. Fisker, donning a graphic tee depicting the electric Ocean SUV, hugged and posed for photos with the company's first customers -- at one point even signing one of the vehicles. What happened next was a harbinger for Fisker and what his eponymous company continues to grapple with: Shortly after Fisker board member Wendy Greuel took delivery, her Ocean SUV lost power on a public road, according to two employees familiar with the matter. The company has confirmed the incident occurred, and said the issue with her vehicle was fixed. Two months later, Geeta Gupta Fisker -- the company's chief financial officer, chief operating officer and Henrik's wife -- took an Ocean out for a drive, only to have it suffer a similar fate, according to a cache of internal documents viewed by TechCrunch. Fisker also confirmed her vehicle lost power, blaming it on a compatibility issue with a special engineering data logger that is not in customer cars. In the months since, Fisker Ocean SUV customers have reported more than 100 separate loss-of-power incidents, the internal documents show. The company told TechCrunch it believes these problems are rare, and that it has resolved "almost all the issues" with software updates. Problems with the Ocean SUV, however, are not limited to the vehicle suddenly losing power, a review of nearly 200 documents shows. Customers have also reported sudden loss of braking power, problematic key fobs causing them to get locked inside or outside of the vehicle, seat sensors that don't detect the driver's presence and the SUV's front hood suddenly flying up at high speeds. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is currently investigating the braking problems, which Fisker claims it resolved. The company told TechCrunch that fixes for the other problems have either been implemented, or are coming in a "Version 2.0" software update scheduled to be released next week. Fisker launched the Ocean later than expected due in part to challenges with the SUV's software; the company spent much of last year making up for lost ground.

Fisker introduces the $37,499 Ocean EV crossover ahead of CES 2020

Fisker unveiled an electric crossover named Ocean during a private event held before the model's official debut at CES 2020. Due out in 2022, the Ocean will compete in the same growing segment of the market as the upcoming Tesla Model Y and the recently-unveiled Ford Mustang Mach-E. The Ocean is the latest brainchild of designer Henrik Fisker, the same man responsible for the Karma (which is now known as the Revero) and the EMotion unveiled at CES 2018. It doesn't look like either of those cars, and it's more SUV-like than its aforementioned rivals. Fisker instructed his team to find ways to make the Ocean stand out in a rising tide of crossovers. Stylists came up with a handful of interesting features, like turn signal repeaters integrated into D-pillars, and solar panels integrated into the roof. Fisker explained motorists who live somewhere with good weather can generate about 1,000 miles of driving range annually by parking in the sun. Naturally, Seattleites need not apply. A thousand miles of range isn't much, but the firm argued it's a start. "We know this thing is improving, and we can then update it because we've already got the hardware," Fisker said during the unveiling.  While safety advocates celebrate the head-up display as a way to keep drivers focused on the road ahead, Fisker found a way to make the feature distracting by adding a karaoke function that presumably shows song lyrics next to the car's speed and navigation directions. We haven't seen the full interior yet, though we know it's made using sustainable materials like discarded fishing nets. There's also a California mode which lowers the six side windows, drops the rear window (like on an old American station wagon), and opens the sunroof at the push of a button to let the breeze in. The Ocean's powertrain consists of a lithium-ion battery pack with a capacity of about 80 kilowatt-hours, and an electric motor mounted over each axle for through-the-road all-wheel drive. Fisker quoted between 250 and 300 miles of driving range depending on driving conditions. Volkswagen-owned Electrify America will open its growing nationwide charging network to Ocean owners. Fisker expects to start Ocean production in late 2021, and deliveries are tentatively scheduled to begin in early 2022. Motorists who want to secure an early build slot still have time to send the company a $250 deposit.

Fisker assets will be auctioned tomorrow, here's the situation today

The remains of Fisker Automotive - which might not even include the name and logo - are supposed to finally be sold off tomorrow, but the scene before the auction is anything but clear. As as reminder, the two bidding parties are Wanxiang and Hybrid Tech Holdings. Hybrid Tech was denied an emergency motion in court last week that would have lifted an earlier ruling that limited how much debt it can use to try and buy Fisker. The limit remains at $25 million. Bloomberg says that the winner's spoils are not so much the cars or the design but the 36 patents involved (about half are pending) as well as an established vehicle brand in both the US and China. The chief economist for the National Automobile Dealers Association, Steven Szakaly, told Bloomberg that, "[the auction is] not about the manufacturing, It's about the intellectual property." The patents include things like the electric drivetrain tech, the solar technology and the design of the mustache grille. Fisker executives have been hit with a $20-million lawsuit that claims they misled investors. And because lawsuits are easier to get than a DOE loan, a number of Fisker executives and the company's legal team have been hit with a $20-million lawsuit that claims Fisker misled investors. The Wall Street Journal reports that Fisker is accused of withholding information that would have given a clearer picture of Fisker's financial situation. According to the WSJ, the lawsuit says the Fisker team kept the negative news quiet, "because they needed huge sums of additional cash to fund Fisker Automotive to position the Company for a sale or an initial public offering...without plaintiffs' and other investors' money, Fisker Automotive was not a viable company." Meanwhile, Hybrid Tech Holding has hired a former Ford executive, Martin Leach, to be better prepared to manage the Fisker assets should Hybrid Tech win tomorrow. Leach told Reuters that he has been working on a business plan "for months," and it starts with the company taking care of current Karma owners and re-engaging suppliers. The most difficult challenge, we imagine, will be with A123 Systems, which supplied the Karma's batteries but was bought by Wanxiang over a year ago. Leach said that Hybrid could get new batteries from Boston Power. Featured Gallery Fisker Atlantic News Source: Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, AP Green Fisker Electric Hybrid PHEV lawsuit fisker atlantic martin leach