Fisker Ocean Extreme First Test: Good Idea, Bad Execution

The last few months have been rough for EV automaker Fisker.

As of this writing, Fisker is on the brink of bankruptcy. Its shares have plummeted more than 90 percent since the start of the year, and it's been delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. Fisker is running out of money and has lost investors, gone through layoffs, and slashed prices of its Ocean SUV by up to $24,000 (note that our spec panel reflects our test vehicle's MSRP prior to these price cuts). Last month, Fisker was forced to scrap plans to produce the smaller Pear crossover. On top of all that, negative reviews of the Ocean have circled online and owner forums are full of gripes about software issues.

The latest setback has been a federal probe into door failures in the SUV.

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Through all of this, we’ve been anxious to get our hands on a Fisker Ocean for some time. We attended the global launch in Europe last summer but wanted to see what it would be like to spend a week or two behind the wheel, driving and living with the SUV as an owner would. Fisker originally committed to take part in last year’s MotorTrend SUV of the Year program but pulled out less than two weeks before the competition started with no explanation. Now, after launching a “2.0 software update,” the company offered us a vehicle to review.

During our time with the 2023 Ocean, we took it to the track, drove it on twisty roads, and road tripped from Los Angeles to San Diego. Even with the big software update, our Ocean had plenty of issues—both with its software and hardware. It did impress us, however, with its ride, build quality, range, interior space, and materials.

But cars don't exist in a vacuum, and the Fisker Ocean is no exception. On its face, it’s a startup’s first crack at a mainstream EV. Yet, in the face of everything that’s happened, we wonder if it's a car with any staying power and what that says about Fisker and the electric car market overall.

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Making Cars Is Hard

Building cars is not an easy job. Ask Tesla or even Chevrolet. Because EVs rely so much on software, automakers have to make sure both that and the hardware are sound. Fisker seems to have gotten the most basic fundamentals right on the 2023 Ocean we tested, but its software issues make the overall driving experience quite troublesome.

Here are the software problems we experienced.

The car had a tire-pressure monitoring light on every time we drove it, even after we verified the pressures were set to spec. The driver’s display would also sometimes say the charge port was open even when it wasn’t. It also took multiple attempts to connect our phones to Bluetooth. What’s more, the system settings would reset overnight, so we had to go through the entire song and dance to reconnect our phones. Every. Single. Day. Some days, the A/C temperature and fan speed would be on different settings than when we left the car, blowing freezing cold air when we got back in.

Once we started driving, we heard random bongs and chimes signifying various error messages. Some of these occurred while driving in a straight line with no one around; other times were when we made a turn with the turn signal flicked on, but no warning message was displayed on the screen. It was hard to know what the vehicle was alerting us about.

When trying to get home one evening, the car refused to shift out of park, and all the warning lights on the driver’s display were lit, along with zero-percent battery notification. This was false information, as it had been parked not long before showing 60 percent battery remaining.

Thankfully, we resolved the issue by locking the Ocean with the key fob, walking away, and waiting 10 to 15 seconds before unlocking it again. But thoughts of being stranded, just like many Ocean owners have been, circled in our minds every time we got in the car. Furthermore, the second-row reading light would turn on and off intermittently at night with no one sitting in the rear seat.

There were inconsistencies while using the most aggressive braking regen setting to simulate one-pedal driving. The car would slow down more on some occasions than others, and it would take a long time for it to come to a complete stop, creeping forward at around 3 mph for a short distance.

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There were hardware-related issues, too.

The braking system was erratic. We had to press all the way down for auto hold to engage. If we were in stop-and-go traffic and tapped the brake pedal instead of pressing it all the way, auto hold wouldn’t engage despite the SUV being at a stop, and the vehicle crept forward or backward as if it were on an incline. This creep also happened when backing out of our parking spot at home, which sits on a slight decline, rolling forward when we were in reverse with the parking brake disengaged.

Key-fob-related problems involved the system not recognizing the key as being in the vehicle when, in fact, it was in the pocket of the driver sitting in the driver’s seat. And we had trouble locking or unlocking the car from certain angles and from distances greater than 10 feet away.

The infotainment display, which can rotate to provide a landscape or portrait orientation, got stuck between both positions, and one of our editors noted when the screen’s content didn’t reorient to match during rotation.

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The Fundamentals Are Good, Actually

Where the Ocean succeeds are the fundamentals. The ride is plush and smooth, the cabin is quiet, and the build quality is as good as that of any traditional automaker; Tesla should be jealous. The interior design and materials are on par with established class competitors, and the seats are comfortable and well cushioned. Cargo and passenger volume is plentiful, with tons of room in the back seat and ample trunk space for road trips.

The Ocean has three drive modes: Earth, Fun, and Excite. However, any difference between them was hardly discernible. We merely noted a very slight change in throttle mapping during our test loop, but that was only because we were intently looking for variations in the vehicle's behavior. Its battery delivered 292 miles of range on a single charge during our MotorTrend Road-Trip Range test, which is below the 360-mile EPA rating but a good number given our test is based on driving at 70 mph.

But those bright spots aren’t enough to save the Ocean; our grievances far outnumber our commendations. In an era of software-defined vehicles and high expectations, it’s clear Fisker rushed the production of its first car and risked issues like the ones we experienced—even after the car received a major software update. Production at the Magna Steyr plant in Austria has been paused for six weeks, purportedly to help Fisker sell its 2023 inventory, and no changes are expected for the 2024 model year.

At this juncture, we don’t see the Ocean surviving as a consumer product with the company’s current health, even with the massive new discounts. (Our test vehicle started just under $64,000 prior to the price changes, but now opens at less than $40K.)

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A Crowded Field

The current EV market is very saturated. It’s not just other startups Fisker must compete with; legacy automakers such as Ford, BMW, and Kia also offer legitimately good options. Those who want to buy an EV in the United States have plenty of cars from which to choose, and although prices are still high, they’re coming down steadily. The charging infrastructure is getting a huge boost with the near-total shift to the NACS standard, which makes Tesla Superchargers viable for owners of other EVs. On the global front, EVs from Chinese automakers are quickly gaining popularity thanks to their attractive designs, attainable prices, and long-range batteries, leaving companies like Fisker with little room for error.

The company has made moves to try to save itself. It has since switched from a direct-sales model to a traditional dealership model, and according to a 2023 Q4 report, its current business plan is “highly dependent on the successful transition to its new Dealer Partner model in 2024.” So far, Fisker has signed only five dealers in the United States and 12 in Europe, representatives confirmed to MotorTrend.

In order to survive, Fisker will likely need a big investor. Earlier this year, it was in talks with Nissan about a cash infusion and even North American manufacturing, according to a Reuters report, but those conversations have since stalled.

Problems with the Ocean aside, Fisker deviated from the playbook from the get-go, which usually sees a startup first securing funding from a large investor and then building its own factory to control production. For example, Rivian, which has successfully launched the R1T and R1S, and recently showed the R2 compact SUV, got sizable investments from Amazon. Lucid, which has so far only launched the Air sedan and shown the Gravity SUV, has the backing of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which just bought another $1 billion in Lucid stock. True, both startups have struggled financially, gone through multiple rounds of layoffs, and had production issues of their own. But they have also positioned themselves more advantageously than Fisker.

Some are still optimistic for Fisker. Undeniably, though, the problems keep piling up, seemingly by the day.

Although we appreciate the Ocean’s fundamentals, we cannot recommend the SUV to anyone. Its software issues are too numerous, and with the troubled company not moving quickly enough to fix them, it's unlikely any owner would avoid the stress and difficulties we encountered.

It’s a shame, because founder Henrik Fisker had the right idea when he created his newest car company, with the admirable aim of building the world’s most sustainable vehicle. He sourced its suppliers near the factory, jammed the Ocean with recycled materials, and installed a solar panel on its panoramic roof. Its affordable price, strong design, fantastic range, and cool features like the rotating screen and available multi-window 'California mode' were attractive selling points. But in a hurry to get the Ocean to market, the SUV ended up with problems so glaring and numerous that Fisker’s vision now appears ill-fated.