Owning a car should be hassle-free, says Fisker boss

The boss of American EV brand Fisker has said he intends to make owning a car as affordable and hassle-free as possible, ahead of the brand launching in the UK next year.

Fisker’s first car is called the Ocean, and is a practical family SUV that brings an imposing design and very generous electric range of 390 miles in top-spec form. Revealed at last year’s Los Angeles Auto Show, it was on show in the UK for the first time recently at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where boss Henrik Fisker was also present.

Speaking to the PA news agency, Fisker said he wanted to make owning a car ‘hassle-free’.

“Our idea is that owning a car in the future should be hassle-free, you should never have to go and service it. There is no other product where you have to go to service with it – you don’t take your TV to be serviced every six months, that would be annoying. So you shouldn’t have to do it with your car either. We have designed the Ocean to be as low-cost maintenance and ownership as possible.”

Fisker says it will operate a collect and drop-off service when cars need servicing, but also aim to diagnose as many cars remotely ‘over the air’.

When the Ocean launches in the UK in mid 2023, it won’t be bought from a dealer but instead a big centre outside of London, though customers can pay more to have it delivered to them.

“We are making it different, and doing without these big expensive dealers. Someone has to pay for that, and it goes on the price of the car. We don’t want to do that, and instead make it as low-cost as possible.”

Though often compared to Tesla, Fisker says they don’t want to compete directly.

“We’re a sustainable car company. I think there’s enough appetite for fresh new alternatives in the EV segment, specifically when it comes to more affordable vehicles. I think the luxury segment is starting to get saturated now. There are a lot of £100,000 vehicles out there, and that’s great and fun, but people can’t afford that.”

Priced from £34,990, the Ocean will be followed in 2024 by the Fisker Pear, a more affordable electric crossover that the firm promises will start from under £30,000. It will also be manufactured by Foxconn, the tech company that produces iPhones. After this comes the Ronan, a four-door electric convertible supercar that’s been developed in the UK by the brand’s ‘Magic Works’ division, which is headed up by former Aston Martin Special Projects boss David King.

Speaking about the Ronan, Fisker said: We are working on redefining the supercar of the future, and one of the toughest things is for supercars to transition into electric, as it’s all about the sense of occasion. We are going super radical with the design to give it that. You’re going to look at it and really go ‘Wow.’”.