The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration announced a new recall for the Fisker Ocean, and it’s another bad one. According to the NHTSA, there’s a chance the water pump will fail, causing a loss of power, as the battery management system sends the electric vehicle into limp mode. The recall report says it affects 7,545 Oceans from the 2023 and 2024 model years that were built between February 9, 2023 and March 13, 2024.
Recalls are much more common than a lot of people would like to think, and often, even if your car is affected by a recall, there won’t be anything wrong in the first place. In fact, it’s not uncommon to see recall reports with an estimated defect percentage of two or three percent. This particular Fisker recall stands out due to the fact that NHTSA estimates 100 percent of affected vehicles have the same defect. If you own an Ocean, you’re definitely going to want to get this taken care of before something bad happens.
While you’re at the service center (assuming some are still open and operating), make sure you also have them take care of the recall on your Ocean’s doors. As it turns out, they might get stuck and trap you inside. If that’s not a perfect metaphor for Fisker ownership, we aren’t sure what is. If there’s an upside to owning a vehicle that’s been recalled twice in less than two weeks, though, at least this recall is only expected to find defects in about three percent of vehicles. So there’s a 97 percent chance you won’t get trapped inside your car. Wait, that still sounds bad? You’re right. That’s bad.
This comes a month after NHTSA issued a different recall for the Ocean surrounding the loss of power. 6,864 cars from the 2023 model year are potentially affected by the problem, where the motor and vehicle control units could put the Ocean into “safe state protection mode,” leading to a loss of drive power. Luckily, this fix is done through an over-the-air update that Fisker started pushing a few weeks ago.
What’s especially frustrating is that it really didn’t have to end this way. Fisker looked like it was doing things right this time around, especially when it came to the decision to contract Magna Steyr to handle production. Unfortunately for everyone who bought into Fisker’s vision, the company was reportedly a total shitshow behind the scenes. The pandemic definitely made things more difficult, but ultimately, Fisker’s second downfall is entirely his own doing.