Fixing Fisker Oceans Requires Wider Release Of Proprietary Diagnostic Tool

The tool is described by a Fisker technician as “compromised and wonky,” but it’s the only way to diagnose Oceans.

Fisker Technician Says

Andrei Nedelea

By: Andrei Nedelea

Jul 3, 2024 at 2:00pm ET

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With Fisker filing for bankruptcy and most likely headed for liquidation, owners who already took delivery of their Ocean electric crossovers are wondering how they will be able to service them. The difficulty will not stem from the questionable availability of spare parts, which already seems to be an issue, but also connecting to the cars to diagnose their problems.

The only way to check for error codes and remove them from a Fisker Ocean is through a proprietary tool called FAST, which the automaker still has exclusive rights to. This tool will need to be passed on to a third party that will keep the thousands of Oceans built on the road and even improve the vehicle over time through software updates.

Fisker has made no specific mention of this, but the rights to the FAST tool will have to go to someone and it’s of vital importance for Fisker owners that it goes to someone who will allow it to be used. The information comes from a Fisker technician going by nickelbackfanclub on Reddit, who shared specifics about the diagnostic tool and how he thinks the company should treat this going forward.

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With nearly 6,000 Oceans delivered, and only some owners opting to trade in their vehicles at a massive loss, there will be thousands of them left on the road. Owners will want to keep driving them and having access to the proprietary diagnostic tool is key.

The technician explains that FAST is a Windows-based app that is “compromised and wonky, but is the only real piece of software needed besides physical tools in order to repair and maintain the Ocean.” He goes on to say that "it is online-only and locked down with Microsoft authenticator," and he asks Fisker owners to lobby for the tool's wider release to whichever company gets the rights to it.

Ideally, the application would have to be modified so to eliminate the need for a continuous internet connection and authentication. This would allow third-party specialist EV shops to work on Oceans.

More than 10,000 Fisker Oceans were built in total, all of which came from the Magna factory in Austria, which has to fire around 500 employees now that production has ended. Fisker managed to deliver over half of the Oceans it built with around 4,300 cars still left unsold and whose fate remains uncertain—a creditor will get all these unsold cars, but we don’t know how or if they will be sold. Some of them could even be scrapped for parts to keep other Oceans on the road.

Henrik Fisker had big plans for the second coming of Fisker. When we spoke to him on the sidelines of the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2021, he seemed very confident in the Ocean’s success, and he shared details about the models that would follow it, the compact Pear, the sporty Ronin and the go-anywhere Alaska.

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All these plans have now been permanently put on hold, and they probably weren’t realistic even when they were announced when Fisker still hadn’t even started production of the Ocean. To some, why Fisker didn’t declare bankruptcy sooner is a mystery, given its permanent financial woes that stretched back years.

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Now, the big concern falls on the shoulders of Ocean owners, who know they made an unwise financial decision to buy one of these cars. They don’t know how they’ll be able to keep their cars on the road even though they want to. Some have already given up and traded in their almost brand-new Oceans at a hefty loss, but at least they got something back while these cars are still worth something.

To make matters worse, Fisker issued a stop-sale and recall for all Oceans sold in the US for door handles that may stick and potentially trap occupants inside. The question is: who will test the affected vehicles and replace faulty parts where needed if Fisker is expected to go into liquidation, on top of the fact that spare parts are virtually nonexistent?

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