Features
19 May 21

The most sustainable car for your fleet is coming in 2022

How do you create affordable, clean and gratifying individual mobility of the future? That is the question that drove Henrik Fisker to create the Fisker Ocean, a state-of-the-art electric crossover built from ethically sourced raw materials as well as ocean plastics. His vision is now close to reality: Magna Steyr will start building the futuristic SUV in Austria by late 2022.

There is no shortage of electric crossovers today and the offer will only expand in the coming years. Not only the legacy brands, but also newcomers like SAIC (MG), Nio, Seres and Aiways want to get their share. The biggest challenge for these new brands is that they have to compete with OEMs that can count on a well-established sales and after sales structure, a solid reputation, a healthy cash position and a faithful customer base, especially in the B2B segment.

The only OEM that succeeded in breaking up the automotive oligarchy so far is Tesla Motors. The reasons for their success are well-known: their products are very desirable and cheap to operate, the customer journey is sleek and highly digitised, and they have a gigantic USP in the shape of the Supercharger network.

Henrik Fisker – the designer of the iconic BMW Z8, Aston Martin DB9 and Fisker Karma and former CEO of Fisker Automotive – is convinced he too has found the key to success on a market that is dominated by the legacy brands. In 2016 he founded Fisker Inc. in California with the goal of becoming a global producer of the most sustainable BEVs on the planet.

The first product to roll off the assembly line is the Ocean, for which Fisker concluded a partnership with Magna Steyr in Austria. It should be market ready by the end of 2022 and compete with the likes of the Tesla Model Y, the Audi A4 e-tron and the BMW iX3. This is Fisker and the Ocean in 10 questions and answers.

1. What is the raison d’être and the philosophy of Fisker Inc.?
“In a nutshell, we are an asset-light automotive enterprise that will offer the most sustainable cars on the planet. We will make them highly attractive in terms of design, price, customer experience, driving range and upgrading capabilities along their lifecycle.”

2. What sets you apart from other OEMs?
“We will be able to offer our vehicles at a very attractive price because of the way we are set up and operate. Rather than building our own factories, we will have our cars co-developed and produced by contract manufacturers. Also, we don’t have any ‘ICE’ legacy that we need to carry, unlike most other OEMs. We only make electric cars and only hire the best in the industry to engineer these electric cars. That means we are much leaner and faster.”  

3. What will be your sales approach?
“We are going for direct sales. This cuts out the middleman, again to the benefit of our customers, who will be able to buy a Fisker at the lowest price possible. We will not only sell, but also lease our cars directly to the customer. That enables us to offer a new type of finance. You can give back the car at any time without having to pay an early termination fee. We will lease that car again as a used vehicle at an attractive rate. The fact that we will keep on updating the car during its lifecycle and enable you to purchase features over the air makes it appealing on the used car market as well.”

4. What about servicing?
“We will select generalist servicing partners that are already on the market. Electric vehicles require less after sales interventions than ICE vehicles and for our customers’ sake, we will organise pick up and delivery so they don’t have to go through the mostly unpleasant experience that is having your car serviced today.” 

5. What will make the Fisker Ocean an interesting company car?
“First of all our vehicles will offer very low servicing costs thanks to the way we have engineered them. It will be built by Magna, a contract manufacturer that is known for building some of the highest quality vehicles in the world, such as the Mercedes-Benz G Class, the BMW Z4 and 5 Series, the Toyota Supra, the Jaguar E-Pace and the electric I-Pace. Secondly, the sustainability aspect will speak to a lot of companies that want to show their clients that they are very serious about the environment. Buying or leasing a Fisker is a way of communicating a strong environmental message.” 

  

6. What does sustainability mean in the case of Fisker?
“The carpeting in each Ocean is made of reclaimed nylon waste from fishing nets. The interior is entirely vegan and features materials like eco-suede, which is made of recycled plastic and polyester fibres from discarded T-shirts. Eco-sustainability, as well as the lowest levels of polluting emissions and energy consumption, are guaranteed throughout the whole production cycle. Using recycled materials allows us to reduce our emissions by 80%.”

7. What makes Fisker a credible partner for corporates and leasing companies in Europe?
“Our head-quarters are in Munich, where we have a VP of sales and a director of fleet sales. We are already in talks with potential corporate customers and explain our sustainability philosophy, how we will provide support and ensure low servicing costs, etcetera. Amongst our first customers is Viggo, an all-electric Scandinavian ride-haling company that has ordered 300 Oceans. In France, Crédit Agricole wanted to offer the most sustainable vehicle to their employees and decided to add Fisker to their supplier list.”
8. Talking about ride hailing: what’s your idea on self-driving capability?
“I don’t believe autonomous driving is different from ABS brakes, electronic stability control, power steering or adaptive cruise control. They are technologies that come into vehicles and then they mature and eventually become part of every vehicle. I don’t see self-driving as something Fisker should focus on as a USP. We are too small a company to try and develop this technology ourselves. As soon as it is available, we will probably buy it off the shelf from the best supplier that is out there and tune it to fit our products.”
9. What will make the Ocean interesting financially?
“We are aiming at a price of €32,000 in Germany after incentives. That would make the Ocean a very competitive offer next to the premium competition, which today costs between €45,000 and €60,000. It goes without saying that we will also offer very attractive lease rates for individuals. Moreover, we will be partnering with e-mobility providers to offer preferential charging rates or even free charging for a certain amount of kilometres.”
10. How do you think other OEMs perceive Fisker?
“I have generally a pretty good relationship with the CEOs a traditional OEMs, mostly the ones that are more progressive. They see Fisker as a motivator for their own people to show that it can be done. That it is possible to build attractive, affordable EVs and integrate new technology in new, smart ways. Some brands stick to traditional ways of doing things because they believe this is necessary to preserve their brand identity. It’s not. There is no point in developing your own seat frames, steering racks, hinges, platforms, etcetera, anymore. If OEMs can share components, that reduces the costs so that the money can be spent on technology that the consumer wants.”

The Fisker Ocean should be production ready by Q4 2022. Fisker Inc. projects over one million vehicles will be made from 2022 to 2027 in Europe, the USA and Asia. Last week, Fisker Inc. announced a partnership with Taiwanese iPhone assembler Foxconn for the co-development and production of an EV code-named PEAR, for Personal Electric Automobile Revolution.

Picture copyright Fisker, 2021

 
   

 

    


   

 

Authored by: Dieter Quartier