DEEP INTO THE OCEAN (some text hidden) --NONE--

By Jonathan Crouch

Jonathan Crouch has everything you need to know about the innovative Fisker Ocean.

Ten Second Reviewword count: 40

The Fisker Ocean brings a completely fresh perspective to what an upper mid-sized quality EV crossover should be. This fledgling Californian brand has here delivered brilliant value, impressive range, striking looks and some clever design features. It's all very impressive.

Backgroundword count: 218

We are indeed in a very different automotive era. Take this car, the Fisker Ocean, an upper mid-sized electric crossover created by a Californian start-up company that not only has no dealers but doesn't build cars either. Instead, as industry giant Apple will with its first car, the brand gets others to do that for it. In this case, the chosen factory partner is Magna Steyr in Austria (who regular build cars for Mercedes and BMW). For Fisker's next model, the Pear, it'll be Foxconn, who make many of the world's iPhones. Fisker buys in all its drivetrains and batteries too, with much shorter development lead times than established makers work to, so buyers get more up-to-date tech. All of which leaves the US company free to concentrate on design, something that, being led by gifted stylist Henrik Fisker (who has the BMW Z8 and the Aston Martin DB9 on his CV), it's well qualified to do. Fisker tried - and failed - to start his own car company a decade ago with the ill-fated Fisker Karma, but the Ocean looks a much better effort, billed as 'the world's most sustainable electric car'. It offers better value, more driving range and more technology than all its main rivals. Who really need to take this car very seriously indeed.

Driving Experienceword count: 323

Can an industry start-up like Fisker really deliver drive dynamics to match rival mid-sized EV crossovers from established brands? Well why not? Those established makers haven't set the ride and handling bar particularly high with their first EV efforts after all. And most of their models haven't especially impressed when it comes to driving range, a failing this Ocean model avoids thanks to its fitment of an enormous 106.5kWh battery (113kWh gross) for the mid-range 'Ultra' model (which has 540bhp) and the top 'Extreme' version (which has 556bhp). These offer AWD twin motor powertrains and a 440 mile range. If you don't need that much, there's an entry-level front-driven single motor 'Sport' variant with a 271bhp motor (0-62mph in 7s) paired with a smaller 75kWh battery that takes you 273 miles between charges. The 'Extreme' version would obviously be your Ocean of choice, not least because it's stunningly fast, making 62mph in just 4.0s, despite carting around about 400kg more weight than its most obvious segment rivals; a penalty you're likely to feel if you start throwing the car around in the kind of manner a typical owner probably never would. It won't help ride quality either. Across the range, there are two main drive modes - 'Earth' (an eco setting) and 'Fun'; the dual motor model has at a further one - 'Hyper', which includes a 'Boost' setting for launch control starts; that gets you to 60 miles an hour in 3.7s. And driving more mundanely? Well you start the car first by touching the brake pedal, whereupon it defaults to 'Earth' mode to manage range, something you can further do by altering the three provided levels of brake regeneration. On the highway, there's the 'Fisker Intelligent Pilot' semi-autonomous system to do some of the driving for you. Three-figure highway speeds probably won't be possible in the 'Sport' model, which is limited to 100mph, but the bigger-battery versions make it to 127mph.

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