Fisker Still Very Much Alive, Shows Ocean SUV in L.A.

Tim Healey
by Tim Healey

Fisker seems to have many lives, and the small brand led off the L.A. Auto Show’s main media day with the debut of its Ocean SUV.

The Ocean uses a solar roof to provide electricity for its battery-powered motor, has a system that distributes the right amount of torque to each wheel to maintain traction, is made from sustainable materials (including a vegan interior), and can even power your house for up to seven days in an emergency.

It also has a 17.1-inch interior touchscreen that can go from landscape to portrait mode and show movies, a dedicated smartphone app, an available self-parking system, and a limo mode for second-row passengers (gives them control over audio and climate controls for the rear, among other things).

There will be four trims, with the cheapest retailing for a bit under $38K and the most-expensive starting at just under $69K. The base trim is a single-motor front-drive unit while the rest are dual-motor AWDs. The base model has a range of 250 miles, while the others have at least 340 miles of range.

[Image © 2021 Tim Healey/TTAC]

Tim Healey
Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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  • Aja8888 Aja8888 on Nov 18, 2021

    Is this a real Fisker car, or a cardboard mockup?

  • MitchConner MitchConner on Nov 19, 2021

    A few months after the original Fisker bit the big one I saw a Karma drive by my office in Palo Alto — making a horrific grinding noise as it went. Almost felt sorry for the dope that had it. Around that time some engineer with more spare time than common sense converted his Prius into a plug in rechargeable. It blew up in his driveway. Now that was worth laughing at.

  • Ltcmgm78 Just what we need to do: add more EVs that require a charging station! We own a Volt. We charge at home. We bought the Volt off-lease. We're retired and can do all our daily errands without burning any gasoline. For us this works, but we no longer have a work commute.
  • Michael S6 Given the choice between the Hornet R/T and the Alfa, I'd pick an Uber.
  • Michael S6 Nissan seems to be doing well at the low end of the market with their small cars and cuv. Competitiveness evaporates as you move up to larger size cars and suvs.
  • Cprescott As long as they infest their products with CVT's, there is no reason to buy their products. Nissan's execution of CVT's is lackluster on a good day - not dependable and bad in experience of use. The brand has become like Mitsubishi - will sell to anyone with a pulse to get financed.
  • Lorenzo I'd like to believe, I want to believe, having had good FoMoCo vehicles - my aunt's old 1956 Fairlane, 1963 Falcon, 1968 Montego - but if Jim Farley is saying it, I can't believe it. It's been said that he goes with whatever the last person he talked to suggested. That's not the kind of guy you want running a $180 billion dollar company.
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