Fisker Ocean: The Good, Bad, and Ugly

It’s time to share my thoughts on the Fisker Ocean One.?

I received the car in December. I did my first deposit on it in the Fall of 2021 and committed to the Ocean One in July of 22. I expected the car to arrive early-mid 2023. Fisker expected the worst case was September 2023.?

By the time the car arrived, it wasn’t needed anymore. I sold my car back in the Fall of 2022, thinking we could survive on one car for half a year. We did. So many things have changed in my life that one car is all we need now.?

The Good.?

The Ocean One is a beautiful, well-designed, and well-built vehicle. It rides nicely. I’m comfortable in the car and appreciate a lot the design details.?

It’s a quirky car. Fisker set out to make this car unique, and he accomplished it. I like its nuances like all windows being operable, its giant (solar) sunroof, and the design and vegan material (Alcantara ) of the seats.?

I really like the digital rearview mirror. This deserves more explanation. The Ocean is not the first to have a digital review mirror, but it’s my first digital mirror. The camera is in the tailgate, and the “mirror” on the windshield is a video display. It’s done very well - there’s no delay, everything is HD, and the lighting/brightness in the “mirror” perfectly matches the exterior.?

Digital mirrors are superior to real rearview mirrors. Heads in the backseat can’t block it. Bright headlights aren’t too bright. A real mirror is there on standby, just flip the “day/night” knob underneath, and it becomes a normal (analog?) mirror.??

A digital “mirror” takes some adjustment. With real mirrors, your eyes focus to distance. With a digital “mirror,” your eyes focus close. It’s not hard; we rapidly change focus every time we look from the road to the dashboard, but for this particular reflex, my brain needed to adjust.?

The car is bigger than I expected, but even more surprising is the amount of room inside the car. I am surprised every time I get in. No hump makes the backseats feel very roomy.?

The Bad

The bad was mostly the customer experience. I was already frustrated with the long delay, but the lack of reasonable communication was rude. My car sat “in port” in the US for a month without word or explanation.?

I’ve been following this car and its creator, Henrik Fisker, for years, and I feel like I know him and his vision pretty well (I never met him). So, the fact that he misrepresented the state of delivery feels personal.?

That said, Henrik is not the first car salesman to stretch the truth. Nor were his lies particularly egregious. Musk raised prices on early deposit holders, continued to lie about self-driving tech, and misrepresented numerous details of the Cybertruck.?

Henrik never actually indicated the car was ready but implied it. He told us that the start of production was September 2022, there were some supplier delays, and that the EPA changed its procedures along with other excuses. Perhaps all that was true, but it didn’t matter - the car wasn’t and isn’t done. The Oceans are being delivered with buggy and incomplete software, and this didn’t just happen unexpectedly.

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Of course, I did expect issues with a new company, but I thought they would be more forthright about communications. As soon as the company did start production, they had a back order of 5000 presold cars. It takes time to build logistics capabilities. I was expecting my car to be delivered to my home in an enclosed trailer. Instead, an employee drove it to my home and took an Uber back to the office.?

The Ugly.?

The Ugly side of the Fisker is its software. The physical vehicle and its construction is flawless. The result of lots of simulations, prototypes, wind tunnels, test drives, track tests, and more. It’s a mystery to me how the software can be so incomplete. Not even the key fob works properly.?

The vision isn’t to use the key fob (the car only comes with one). The vision is to use the smartphone as a digital key - but that software isn’t working yet. The fob's issues are just salt in the wound.? I’m not hung up on the fob. This is a minor issue - I’m hung up on how such a minor issue isn’t working six months after deliveries started.?

The list of missing features is not short and includes Park My Car, adaptive cruise control, lane centering, auto high beam, and vehicle-to-home power. That said, Fisker has been rolling out updates. The earlier Oceans couldn’t even receive OTA updates, and many other issues have been resolved. It’s a good car now and will be a great car when they get their software act delivered.??

The lack of features is a minor irritant. The more significant issue is the bugs. The software is not exactly reliable. I’ve had to reboot my car a few times on the side of the road. Each software update is more about bug fixes than the delivery of new features.?

I received one or half of one update within a few weeks. The second half is taking much longer to arrive. It involves an attended upgrade conducted by someone at HQ. Evidently, he is very busy, as I haven’t been prompted to receive it yet.?

Final Thoughts

It’s very disappointing to see Fisker struggle. Fisker’s “asset light” approach to EVs meant Fisker didn’t have to build a factory. The company supposedly makes profit on each sale, yet Fisker is struggling with cash. Henrik underestimated the cost and complexity of ramping up sales and deliveries. He also underestimated the joys of software development.??

He’s already given up on direct-to-consumer sales. The company is actively recruiting dealers. Dealers are not exactly the best part of the car industry, nor were they a part of Fisker’s plan for his company. Fisker is promising no-haggle pricing. As far as I know, that’s illegal. Manufacturers don’t get to dictate dealer pricing.

Whatever he works out, it’s a step backward from the direct model he set out to build. The company’s inability to get deliveries right in the few months has caused a wholesale [sic] change in distribution.?

If I weren’t so involved, I’d be fascinated. Designing and building the car is supposed to be the hard part - not delivering them.?

Prior @Fisker Posts: ?My First Test Drive and Owning an EV