You can buy this electric luxury SUV for $25,000 right now. But there might be a catch
By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNN
(CNN) — For sale: A brand new luxury electric SUV for the holy-grail price of $25,000. There just might be a slight catch.
The California-based electric SUV company Fisker faces a real possibility of bankruptcy, and its stock is hovering just over 2 cents a share, far below its 2021 peak of $28.50.
And even though production has halted, the company still has SUVs to offer, so it’s having a sale. Prices for Fisker’s Ocean SUV have been cut by as much 39%. The catch, however, is that the car has received critical reviews rather than wide acclaim. And getting it serviced may not be easy.
The base sticker price for the top-of-the-line Fisker Ocean Extreme has been cut from about $62,500 to $37,5000. Prices for the Sport trim level have been cut from $39,000 to $25,000.
In announcing the price cuts, Fisker billed the move as a strategic shift rather than a fire sale.
“Fisker is strategically positioning the all-electric Ocean SUV to be a more affordable and compelling EV choice, competitively available to EV buyers in the broadest possible market,” the company said in announcing the price cuts.
The car itself has had some bad reviews. The Ocean was also the subject of a scathing review by American YouTube personality Marques Brownlee. His video was titled, “This is the Worst Car I’ve Ever Reviewed.”
“Do not buy this version of the Fisker Ocean,” reads the video’s description. Brownlee’s February 17 video has racked up more than 4.8 million views so far, and it sent Fisker’s stock price plunging after its release.
Consumer Reports also recently published its own review of the Ocean, panning its ride quality and software, although the reviewers did like its cargo space, rear seat legroom and large glass moonroof.
Fisker has said that problems with early versions of the vehicles’ software caused some of the negative responses. The company also said it plans to continue updating and improving the software through over the air updates that will be installed without the SUVs needing to be taken to a dealer or service center.
Fisker declined to say how the SUVs would be serviced in the event the company does go out of business. Fisker, founded in 2016 by a Danish auto designer named Henrik Fisker, had originally planned to sell and service vehicles itself, as other EV startups such as Tesla and Rivian do. Recently, though, Fisker shifted to recruiting independent dealers to sell vehicles the way more established automakers do.
By end of 2023, Fisker had signed up only 12 dealers in the United States and Europe, however.
Fisker had reported in early March that it could run out of cash to continue operations. Its SUVs are produced by the contract manufacturing company Magna Steyr in Austria. Last year, Magna produced more than 10,193 Fisker SUVs, but fewer than half of those were delivered to customers within the calendar year, the company announced in March.
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