The bankrupt automaker behind the Ocean electric sport utility vehicle has issued yet another safety recall. Forced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration through a preliminary investigation conducted by the Office of Defects Investigation due to complaints over unintended vehicle movement, Fisker came up with a software update that improves the breed with AVH.
Make that automatic vehicle hold, a feature that rolled out by means of an over-the-air update back on March 2024, which further added OS 2.0 to the now-discontinued model. The NHTSA's ODI first met with Fisker to discuss unintended vehicle movement on October 31, 2024. Fisker is aware of a single injury related to the described concern.
The AVH activates upon depressing the brake pedal while stopped and in drive. Said feature disengages not when the brake pedal is released but rather when the accelerator pedal is depressed. This debacle started with complaints over the alleged inability to shift into the intended drive mode, with some customers experiencing vehicle movement in both directions in either drive or reverse.
Ocean crossovers feature a steering column-mounted selector that reads R, N, D, and P, with park engaged by pressing the button at the top end of the selector. The Office of Defects Investigation first looked into complaints alleging unintended vehicle movement in February 2024. Back then, the National Highway Traffic Safety estimated the suspect population of vehicles at 4,000 examples.
Be that as it may, the most recent safety recall clearly reads 7,745 units of the Fisker Ocean. More specifically, 2023 and 2024 models produced between February 1, 2023 and March 13, 2024 in Austria by Magna Steyr.
Photo: Fisker
Magna International's Q1 2024 financial report spilled the beans on how bad the situation was at Fisker back then. Chief exec Swami Kotagiri underlined in said financial report that Magna assumed no further production of the Ocean, and Kotagiri was proven right. Come June 2024, after talks with a large automaker that unfortunately collapsed, the company went belly up.
All remaining Ocean electric sport utility vehicles were cleared for sale by the bankruptcy judge on July 16, with American Leasing buying the remaining stock for an estimated $14,000 each. By comparison, Fisker's website continues to list the Ocean with a starting price of 38,999 buckaroos.
$38,999 was the starting price of the entry-level Sport, a single-motor EV with a power liftgate, front heated seats, and up to 231 miles (372 kilometers) of range on a full charge. $52,999 got you the Ultra, which builds on the Sport with all-wheel drive, a different roof, California Mode, a superior audio system, and no more than 350 miles (563 kilometers).
The Extreme promises up to 360 miles (579 kilometers) for a cool 61,499 dollars. Back in the day, the most obvious rival to the Fisker Ocean was – of course – Tesla's Model Y. As of this writing, the Model Y tops 337 miles (542 kilometers) and starts at $44,990 excluding freight and potential savings.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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