2023 Fisker Ocean on 2040-cars

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New Fisker teases Karma's return

The Fisker Karma is poised to make a comeback – or at least the recently renamed Elux Karma is. The website for The New Fisker is now teasing the future model with sparse text and a shadowy image of the plug-in hybrid luxury sedan. An introduction is coming some time in April 2015. The text on the site certainly doesn't explain much. In four sections of the car it simply says "It's On," "Luxury Energized," "Energy Optimized" and "Introducing April 2015." Fisker owner Wanxiang is rumored to actually put the reborn Karma on sale in 2016, but under Elux branding and at a price around $135,000. Unnamed insiders already indicated the styling for the Elux was very similar to the original Fisker Karma, and this was in part because major changes would have required new safety testing. This teaser also suggests not to expect any big alterations – it appears nearly identical to the last models from 2012. Wanxiang bought Fisker for $149.2 million in early 2014 and initially hoped to have its version of the Karma on sale by early 2015. Related Video:

Fisker Ocean enters production this week without some ADAS features

At the beginning of the year, Henrik Fisker said his eponymous company anticipated the Ocean battery-electric crossover entering production in November, first deliveries happening in early 2023. In the latest update during the Q3 earnings call with analysts, Fisker said everything is on track, the Ocean expected to start rolling down the production line at Magna Steyr's facility in Graz, Austria on November 17. If that happens, then dealers would be handing over the first sets of keys to retail customers next February. Hitting the milestones might be a bigger pick-me-up for Fisker than the customers, showing the longtime design executive may finally have the right team in place to become a successful auto executive. There will be some hiccups, however. Automotive News reports the first Oceans will be delivered without some software features because Fisker doesn't want to delay production while the coding is sorted. Most of the omissions are from Fisker Intelligent Pilot, the advanced driver assistance suite. Affected units will not have automatic high beams, blind-spot monitoring, and lane-keep assistance, which the company hopes to add with an over-the-air update early next year. Based on the production timeline, that could mean only the Fisker Ocean One, limited to 5,000 units and built into Q2 of next year, will be affected. Lane centering and traffic-jam assist are anticipated to come at the end of 2023. Cruise control is another casualty, unavailable until later next year. Fisker told Autonews he believes "There's also, quite frankly, a lot of customers that may not care about it, so why wait to launch the vehicle? And you know you're going to maybe get it three months, six months, nine months later." Based on the analyst call, Fisker Automotive is prepping for the trials of homologation in Europe and the U.S., and wants to do as much as possible at once instead of doing piecemeal software certifications. Delivering vehicles without certain software-enabled features that will be added later shouldn't surprise anyone. Volkswagen did the same with the ID.3 launch. Meanwhile, the chip shortage convinced legacy OEMs to sell cars without features that couldn't be added later.   Fisker's production ramp-up for 2023 intends for Magna to build more than 300 units in Q1, more than 8,000 units in Q2, more than 15,000 units in Q3, and at least 19,100 units in Q4, making a total of 42,400 Oceans. As mentioned, the first 5,000 will be the Ocean One.

Fisker fills in more details on the electric Ocean crossover

With two years go to before Fisker commences deliveries of the all-electric Ocean crossover, we're in for many months of piecemeal updates. The fledgling California automaker has released another smattering of details after debuting the Ocean at this month's Consumer Electronics Show, helping to fill in some functional aspects. At 182.7 inches long, 76 inches wide, and 63.6 inches high, the Fisker is 0.6 inches taller than the Ford Mustang Mach-E, 3.3 inches shorter in overall length, and two inches wider. The dimensions translate into 20 cubic feet of cargo room with the rear seats up and the parcel shelf installed, 25 cu. ft. without the parcel shelf, and 45 cu. ft. with the shelf out and rear seats down. At the other end of the interior, the instrument cluster is 9.8 inches, and the infotainment screen is a 16-inch vertically-oriented unit with haptic feedback. In between, designers did their best to source eco-friendly materials to create a "vegan interior." The Dinamica seating surfaces are derived from old T-shirts, polyester fibers, and recycled plastic, with reinforced rayon backing. The carpet comes from recycled nylon taken from discarded fishing gear. Fisker also says it will recycle rubber waste created during the Ocean's production. The standard wheels come in 20-inch sizes, with 22-inchers on the options sheet. Roof rails and a tow hitch will be options, too, but we'll need to wait another year to find out towing capacity. Turns out the announced entry price for $37,499 is for a base model that doesn't benefit from all-wheel drive, meaning it also doesn't get the more-than-300-horsepower powertrain. When we covered the reveal, we wrote, "Fisker quoted between 250 and 300 miles of driving range depending on driving conditions," so it's possible the base model notches 300 miles while the AWD version comes in closer to 250 miles. The Ocean gets an 80-kWh battery pack. For comparison, there's a 20-mile range delta between RWD and AWD versions of the Mach-E with the Standard Range 75.7-kWh battery pack. A high-performance Ocean will get a larger pack, targeting acceleration to 60 miles per hour in under three seconds, a fair chunk faster than the 3.5-second sprint for the Tesla Model Y Performance. Details on that model won't come until 2021. At some point this year, tire kickers will be able to explore the Ocean in person at Fisker experience centers, and set up test drives through a mobile app due next year.