Fisker Went Bankrupt. What Do Its EV Owners Do Next? | Hacker News Reader

Fisker Went Bankrupt. What Do Its EV Owners Do Next?

wired.com

26 pointsrntn34 comments

> Right now, Fisker owners should make sure they have great comprehensive insurance on their cars, says Justin Simard, an associate professor of law researching commercial law at Michigan State University College of Law. Without a functioning service and repair system, “you could get totaled out with a little fender bender,”

I wonder if we squint and read between the lines it's translated as "Whatever you do, after making sure you have a comprehensive insurance policy, do not get into a fender bender that will total your Fisker car and let your insurance company replace your Fisker with another vehicle..."

If you are well enough off to buy a Fisker I think you should consider having a very high deductible for damage to your car. It isn't worth it to insure your car for dings and dents if you can reliably afford to pay the body shop / tire place yourself. If you price shop different deductible levels you will see that you pay the cost of the trip to the body shop every 3- 5 years.

Caveats: Leases may not let you do this. Insurance is priced wildly differently for all kinds of reasons. Some places you may get your car dented a lot more frequently.

Absolutely 100% what I was thinking hahahah. Also that article also states something about the resale value going down..... ummmm .... going down? How is that possible? I would assume the current resale value is $0. Who on earth would buy a used ev from a company that doesn't even exist anymore?

> Who on earth would buy a used ev from a company that doesn't even exist anymore?

So it sounds like you're telling me that the telemetry may still try to phone home, but there's no longer anyone there to answer? The automated firmware update system which lets the manufacturer brick and/or fuck with your vehicle after you've bought it no longer does anything?

This sounds very interesting.

Then with enough leaving the market, they will become a rare collectable, to bring the price back up in a few (or many) years.

Absolutely, the best thing to do is preserve it as best as possible and put in storage. In many years it will be worth something as a rare kit rebuild

Somehow, I just picture the old devices I've forgotten in a drawer somewhere for a decade - with alkaline batteries inside.

I don't understand. Even in the world of ICE, you don't buy a car from an upstart car company unless you're willing and able to simply throw that money away.

Paradoxically, that's why such cars are almost always high-end performance cars that are very expensive. Why? Who wants to throw money away on something Ford or Toyota could have easily made?

But an exotic car from a now-defunct manufacturer? That has collector value.

That's what made the Tesla Roadster so special. It was a first-of-its-kind vehicle that delivered exceptional performance numbers.

Those are the kinds of vehicles you need to make to fund the operations needed to grow into the mass markets. Maybe the FIA Electric GT Championship, which starts in 2026, will help? Auto racing is how many of the ICE manufacturers got the funding they needed to expand their markets.

Presumably people (guys? My guess is 100% guys) who bought Fiskers could afford to lose the money, OR they wanted to look like guys who could afford to lose the money - that's what conspicuous consumption is all about.

> Immediately, the vehicles were found to have serious build quality shortcomings

Reminds me of Tesla, whose CEO "knows more about manufacturing than anyone alive on planet Earth".

Fisker’s issues include false AEB activations, among other safety issues [0]. While Tesla build quality has always been questionable, Fisker’s issues have sometimes been showstoppers that leave owners in potentially life-threatening situations. Panel gaps won’t kill but, but faulty AEB will. I think the cybertruck faulty accelerator pedal is the only thing in recent memory with a major safety issue for Tesla.

[0]: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ev-sta...

The closest thing that comes to my mind are the false claims about the autopilot, that are currently under investigation in California. The autopilot is linked to at least 13 fatal crashes.

The fact that it can even be called that, or worse even "full self driving" is absolutely bonkers to me.

I drove a few older model s cars with AP2 and the emergency braking kicked in on the freeway several times. Never had it happen with AP1 (mobileeye). Don't know if current cars experience this.

These Elon digs whenever it is deemed remotely relevant are bizarre, at this point. It doesn't seem to be adding value to the discussion at best, and at worst it seems to violate the HN guidelines.

The first sentence of the wired article linked should help with understanding. There are concerns about the need for software updates and the lack of replacement parts/maintenance, meaning it goes from collectible to paperweight

I think the lack of understanding was why somebody who spent tens of thousands on what basically amounts to a kickstarter campaign for a new car is surprised when the new company folds and leaves their customers in a lurch.

This probably wouldn't be as big of a deal in decades past. Worst case, you just had to learn how to do car maintance yourself, or take your car to an expensive mechanic that worked on oddities. But now? When almost everything is software controlled, and the company that controls that software disappears and takes their keys with them? You're screwed.

Am I missing something about people being surprised or concerned about finances? The article seems to be about the owners being concerned about and working on finding ways to keep their cars running after the company is gone, honestly doesn't even seem mention financial costs as a burden for owners.

> it goes from collectible to paperweight

That's what OP is confused about - why anyone would buy an experimental car without knowing it has potential to be worthless. The lack of parts on a novelty ice car has the same issue when the company folds.

A lot of people don't think about things like this before buying a car. Every car will end up worthless, it's just a question of how long it will take. If the buyer only tends to keep their car for a few years anyway, the risk of a new brand not being around anymore probably seems low.

I think that while a large majority of people do think about things like this when buying a car, those people tend to end up with toyotas or hondas or a car with a 10 year warranty, and not a rando new startup ev lol. Given the other options on the market, the fact they even considered a fisker means they're not prioritizing reliability/longevity as their #1 priority.

>Every car will end up worthless

Not all of them - my last two went up in value towards the end as collectables (ferrari 308, mk1 mazda mx5). They start getting a bit expensive to maintain after a while though.

My confusion is - unless i'm missing something I don't see anything about the owners being surprised or not knowing there's a potential to be worthless, it's about the effort they're going to in order to be able to keep using the car. the main guy in the article is the cto of some tech startup in europe lol it ends with him wanting to till drive the car still because this incomplete poorly reviewed barely functional mess is a "fantastic" car (now that I don't understand!). But nobody here seems to be shocked at the idea that a startup went backrupt or reliant on a fisker to get to work every day

A novelty ICE car can be used as an occasional fair weather driver or prepared for long term storage to be sold a few decades later. A novelty EV has little hope of being returned to operating condition 10+ years later.

I was so tempted to get one. I really liked the design and the idea of this SUV. But the price was ever so slightly out of my budget for the Ocean Ultra that I was waiting for factory incentives and lease deals to hit. What I didn't expect was for the bottom to fall out for the whole company. I know there are teething problems for any new startup. But it was bad news after bad news with Fisker. I'm glad I didn't go through with it.

Alternatively it is great news for you - you can now get one for a bargain price.

https://archive.ph/ZKzrT

This article doesn't explain how the recall process would (or, more likely, wouldn't) work for Fisker. I.e. if a serious safety flaw were discovered, potentially one that even put other cars/people on the road at risk, what would happen?

I didn't know anyone had actually received cars.

The few people I know who wanted one were on the waiting list. None had actually got a car. And now their deposit money is gone, too.

Were people leasing Fiskers? That's what I would have done, had I wanted to drive one.

> But owners sometimes complained that it was tricky to get their vehicles serviced or repaired, because there weren’t enough certified Fisker repairers and technicians

I would bet money that most of the "certification" process for technicians (aside from high voltage electrical safety, which is common to ALL EVs) is an NDA that grants access to unnecessarily proprietary diagnostic software. All this fancy talk about certification is just an excuse to charge consumers more for maintenance by adding an illusion of complexity.

This sort of crap is exactly why we need stronger Right to Repair protection. If a company [that sells consumer products] goes under, the specs, schematics, drawings, and source code, etc should go into the public domain. It can be the owners' job to parse through it all and figure out what to do about making/procuring replacement parts and finding mechanics to service the technology, but that data should at least be available.

There is also a certification and vetting process for electronic lock rekeying, for obvious reasons. But that is a nitpick.

Speaking to your comment more generally — I’ve long been concerned about these newer manufacturers and DRM. Even if the source code is released, there’s no guarantee or requirement to release keying material that might be used to enforce firmware checks/attest to firmware integrity. That might (or not) be arguably okay as long as the manufacturer remains in business, but certainly not when they’re no longer around.

That problem will only get worse and serves to devalue cars and unnecessarily junk them, which is hard on the environment and a waste of societal resources.

But that is usually the only "asset" worth anything to anyone for it to be just released.

And any debts will be covered by whatever assets can return.

Now, ideally, I agree, but then again, I am a free software proponent, and I'd like my car to come with open source code even while it's still supported. It's ok if you lose warranty when you modify your engine parameters.

Yes, there needs to be some legal mechanism to release specs and diagnostics if manuf can't provide service...eg cos they went bankrupt or where all licensed technicians are 6mo backlogged. Some sort of a legal documentation escrow where the info is released every time the manuf isn't living up to commitment

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