Tag: Automobiles

Following recent reports that Fisker has been preparing for a possible bankruptcy filing, today the embattled automaker announced that it is suspending all manufacture of its electric vehicles.

“Fisker will pause production for six weeks starting the week of March 18, 2024, to align inventory levels and progress strategic and financing initiatives,” the company said in a statement.

Fisker further said that it has secured a financing commitment from an existing investor of “up to $150 million.” The money would be organized in four tranches, but is by no means guaranteed; Fisker said it is subject to “certain conditions,” including the filing of the company’s 2023 Form 10-K, a comprehensive report filed annually by public companies about their financial performance.

WIRED asked Fisker’s PR representative to expand on what exactly the “certain conditions” are to secure the new investment. They declined to provide additional detail.

EV sales in the US have slowed more broadly, but Fisker has had an especially rocky run. Arguably, it lost a degree of quality control when it ceded manufacturing to Canada-based supplier Magna. Moreover, Fisker seemingly prioritized style over substance, as borne out by build and software issues of its Ocean SUV. These issues have fueled the view that in the car world there’s simply no substitute for the experience gained from making vehicles for a century, like, say, BMW has.

Likely looking for a potential lifeboat, Fisker has also confirmed it is in negotiations with “a large automaker” for investment in the company, joint development of one or more electric vehicle platforms, and North America manufacturing. That company is reportedly Nissan, according to Reuters. However, it sounds like these negotiations are far from completion, as the Fisker statement also says “any transaction would be subject to satisfaction of important conditions, including completion of due diligence and negotiation and execution of appropriate definitive agreements.”

WIRED tested the Fisker Ocean in July 2023 but, due to the unfinished nature of the test car, was left in the unprecedented position of being unable to provide a rating for the EV. Our test Ocean was plagued with squeaky pedals, an inoperative California mode (where the EV drops all its windows save the windscreen) forcing a switch in car mid-test, and poor handling that was supposedly to be fixed with a software update. Simply put, too many features were missing or “coming soon,” making the Ocean SUV an EV we just couldn’t rate properly.

Since launch, the Ocean has been dogged by quality issues, with owners complaining of sudden power losses, glitchy key fobs and sensors, hoods flying open, and brake problems.

Indeed, shortly after Fisker board member Wendy Greuel took delivery of her own Ocean SUV, it lost power on a public road. Similarly, according to a cache of internal documents viewed by TechCrunch, Geeta Gupta Fisker, the company’s chief financial officer, chief operating officer, and cofounder Henrik Fisker’s wife, experienced a shutdown in power while driving an Ocean.

Fisker has a checkered history beyond the Ocean. It was more than a decade ago when its eponymous owner, previously of BMW, Ford, and Aston Martin (where he was design director), last presented a car bearing his name. The Karma, a range-extender sports GT, was ahead of its time in many respects, but it was dogged by problems, including a disastrous Consumer Reports test and fires.

The company’s current situation looks bleak. Fisker states that it has approximately 4,700 vehicles in its inventory, carried over from 2023 and including 2024 production, and believes the completed vehicle value for this inventory is in excess of $200 million. It has delivered 1,300 vehicles in 2024 and shipped 4,900 to customers in 2023.

In February, Fisker reported that it made $273 million in sales last year but was more than $1 billion in debt. It also issued a warning that there was “substantial doubt” about its ability to stay in business. The prolonged pause in production seems to reinforce that doubt even further.

Last week, the electric automaker Rivian unveiled the R2, its latest electric SUV. When the vehicle starts rolling off production lines—in the first half of 2026, Rivian says—the R2 will join the R1S SUV and the R1T pickup truck in the automaker’s lineup.

Critically, Rivian pledges its newest entry will be cheaper: At “around” $45,000, according Rivian’s press materials, the SUV will cost some $30,000 less than its bigger SUV cousin, and will still come with about 300 miles of range.

Pulling off the feat of making its new SUV more affordable without sacrificing range or style should not only prove critical in making Rivian’s latest ride stand out in an increasingly crowded field of electric vehicles—it also might save the company. How did Rivian make it work? “R1 was designed through addition. It’s our premium flagship. We got to say yes to a lot of things,” Jeff Hammoud, the automaker’s chief design officer, said at an R2 unveiling event in Laguna Beach, California, last week. “With R2, we’re really thinking about, to get the price point down, what do we need to say no to?”

It’s early, but the math seems to have worked: Rivian reported taking more than 68,000 reservations in the first 24 hours after the SUV’s unveiling.

For the electric automaker’s design team, the trick to creating what executives called the “more accessible” R2 was to maintain the original SUV’s design language—the elements that make it clearly a Rivian—while snipping manufacturing and materials costs wherever they could. So the R2 has Rivian’s signature front, complete with smile headlights, and looks like a shrunken version of the R1S. (The new vehicle seats five people instead of seven.) Cutting more costs came down to smart engineering.

After a long day of showing off the R2 and its surprise crossover counterpart, the R3, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe sat down with WIRED to discuss his engineering and design teams’ little compromises that help make the new SUV work.

Suspension System

In a bid to make the R1 line into a sports car/off-roader hybrid, Rivian had to go all out with its suspension system. Because electric batteries are heavy, the vehicle needed air springs to ensure it could get the ground clearance required to traverse rough roads but also the stability to make the ride feel comfortable and smooth. An electro-hydraulic roll control system helps the R1 navigate tight corners—the sports car part—absorb off-road shocks and maximize wheel articulation, so as many wheels as possible can maintain contact with even the most treacherous terrain. The fancy system also enabled some delightful perks. Camp mode, for example, uses the suspension system to level out the R1’s chassis while on uneven ground, making it more pleasant to sleep or cook in, or just hang inside the vehicle or in its truck bed.

But that complex and expensive suspension system wouldn’t work for the R2, says Scaringe. To cut down on manufacturing costs, the SUV has a fixed ride height and fixed roll control. Instead of an independent double wishbone front suspension design—using two arms to connect each wheel to the chassis—the R2 uses a strut.

The change “was absolutely the right call,” says Scaringe, because it performs well in internal safety testing, saves the automaker “hundreds of dollars,” and comes with the added advantage of giving the R2 more front storage room.

Rear Windows

For the R2, Rivian designers wanted to give passengers a classic “open-air” adventure car experience, the kind found on a safari inside a Toyota Landcruiser. So the team set out to give the rear passenger windows full-drop glass. Easier said than done. Many vehicles, including the R1S, have a fixed quarter window, separated from the portion that rolls down by a strip of metal and rubber called a division bar. The configuration makes sense for lots of vehicles, because the rear passenger doors overlap with the front of the rear wheelbases, meaning that the small portion of glass behind the division bar has nowhere to go.

So to drop that window glass, Rivian’s design team had to spend lots of time fiddling with the size of the R2’s back doors. “There were some goofy proportions for a while because of it,” says Scaringe. In the end, the final configuration allows the entire back windows to drop. It also allows Rivian to save money on glass, division bars, and sealants.

Rear Table

Hammoud, the Rivian design head, says R1S owners really love the SUV’s split rear tailgate. It opens like a clamshell, which allows easier access to the trunk by shorter humans, and also gives people a place to sit, shielded from the elements. But that setup is pretty pricey. In the R2, Rivian has nixed the split tailgate but added a handy little rear tray table, which can be used inside the car during picnics or camping jaunts but can also flip outside the car to be used as a seat or changing table.

Portable Bluetooth Speaker

The R1 line comes with a built-in, removable bluetooth speaker, which also emits a soft, yellow glow—a lovely campsite mood setter. But mood setting ain’t free. The R2 doesn’t come with the speaker. Sad, but necessary to keep costs down.

Frunk

Rivian likes to talk about its software-first approach. Indeed, its vehicles are constantly collecting data. For that reason, the automaker knows that drivers really use its front trunk, or “frunk”—the storage space where a gas-powered car’s engine usually goes. Scaringe credits the R1 frunk’s popularity to its very easy-to-use open-and-close tech, which allows people to open up and close down the thing by double-tapping a button on the key fob or depressing a button on the front fascia, no pushing or prodding required.

But that system is expensive. For the R2, the frunk still opens with the tap of a button, which releases a latch inside. But a small strap dangles from the inside lid of the compartment. Drivers only have to give the strap a light tug before a cinch takes over, closing the frunk tight. “It’s just the right trade-off for a $45,000 car,” says Scaringe. Rivian will really find out if drivers agree about two years from now when the R2 rolls out of the factory and onto American roads.