- Fisker has warned it faces the possibility of bankruptcy.
- Fisker Ocean owners are worried their cars might be bricked if the company goes under.
- Some owners have experienced multiple software issues with the car since its release last year.
Fisker is poised to break ground in the EV market, just not the way it wanted to.
As the electric-vehicle startup founded by millionaire car designer Henrik Fisker teeters on the verge of bankruptcy, no one is quite sure what will happen to the roughly 6,000 vehicles already delivered to customers since June 2023.
If Fisker folds — as it warned is possible for the third time on April 16 — it will be among the first EV startups of the modern age to go belly-up, testing the longevity of a fleet of vehicles dependent on proprietary software and technology to keep them running.
"We're running into uncharted territory," said Sam Fiorani, the vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions. "Nearly any mechanic can work on a traditional internal combustion engine, but when you have a software-defined vehicle, it takes somebody who understands all the lines of code to keep it up to date."
Business Insider spoke with seven Fisker Ocean owners who shared their anxieties about what will happen to their cars if Fisker is no more.
"If Fisker goes bankrupt, who is going to keep the software running?" said Kurt Mechling, who returned his Fisker Ocean in January after a series of technology failures that he said left the car so undrivable he had to put soap under the locked wheels to get it on a tow truck bed.
"These cars are basically computers, and they need software updates," Mechling said. "If they get stuck on what's out there right now, pretty quickly they'll be bricked just like mine was."
Since the Ocean's release last year, owners have raised several safety-related concerns, including ADAS errors, issues with the car's seat monitor not recognizing a driver's weight for airbag activation, and shifting issues. In other cases, owners reported difficulties charging or instances when the vehicle's 12-volt battery, which powers the vehicle's infotainment system and lock and unlock functions, died altogether.
Fisker has also stopped giving customers new key fobs, due to a shortage of available equipment, two current employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity told Business Insider. At the time of delivery, owners were only given a single key fob to access the car in addition to the Fisker app which can lock and unlock the vehicle. Multiple owners told BI their key fobs have died repeatedly or failed to connect with the car, making it difficult to access the vehicle.
A spokesperson for Fisker did not respond to a request for comment.
The deadline is approaching to get your Fisker repaired
Chris Salvo, the CEO of EV repair shop Electrified Garage, told BI his company has received more than a dozen calls from Fisker Ocean owners asking whether his shop could service the vehicle if Fisker went out of business. Salvo said they likely won't.
Aside from minor servicing like tire fixes, Salvo said it would be difficult to diagnose the car because Fisker hasn't open-sourced its software.
"There's no real financial incentive for repair shops to spend the money it would take to fix it," Salvo said.
Fisker has been struggling to respond to a backlog of customer service complaints, one of the employees who spoke to BI said, especially as owners rush to get repairs done before any potential bankruptcy filing.
"People are now acknowledging that we are probably going bankrupt and asking for service/parts before we do so they can have working cars," the employee said. "People are genuinely worried they won't have a working car if we go under."
It's unlikely that every Fisker will be bricked overnight if the company goes bankrupt, Fiorani said, but some cars may stop working over time due to bugs or other maintenance issues that can't be fixed by a company that doesn't exist anymore.
Some Fisker owners said they are already struggling to get service and parts.
Three Fisker ocean owners described instances where the vehicle was bricked for days after their 12-volt battery died. The owners were only able to access their vehicle after a Fisker technician installed a new battery — a process that took up to nine days, the owners said.
Patrick Burrell, a Fisker owner in California, said his car has been in a Fisker-approved repair shop for 10 weeks for a minor repair to a portion of its trim and paint job.
What Fisker's failure would mean for its competitors
If Fisker files for bankruptcy, there are likely to be ripple effects for other EV startups, Fiorani said.
The high-profile failure of an electric car startup couldn't come at a worse time for the EV market, which is already experiencing a new wave of pressures that have thrown industry executives through a loop.
Electric car shoppers are becoming a more practical group — favoring legacy car companies over unproven startups. That change in attitude, plus a renewed interest in hybrids, is already taking a toll on newer EV companies, including industry leader Tesla.
Fisker's contemporaries, like Rivian and Lucid, should be taking note of the worry among Fisker owners and doing their best to reassure their customers and potential buyers that they have the money to take care of their fleets for the long run, Fiorani said.
"If Fiskers start falling off the side of the road in the next few months because there's no one to update them, that's going to put fear into a lot of electric vehicle owners — not just Fisker owners," Fiorani said.
