For sale: A brand new luxury electric SUV for the holy-grail price of $25,000. There just might be a slight catch.
The California-based electric SUV company Fisker faces a real possibility of bankruptcy, and its stock is hovering just over 2 cents a share, far below its 2021 peak of $28.50.
And even though production has halted, the company still has SUVs to offer, so it’s having a sale. Prices for Fisker’s Ocean SUV have been cut by as much 39%. The catch, however, is that the car has received critical reviews rather than wide acclaim. And getting it serviced may not be easy.
The base sticker price for the top-of-the-line Fisker Ocean Extreme has been cut from about $62,500 to $37,5000. Prices for the Sport trim level have been cut from $39,000 to $25,000.
In announcing the price cuts, Fisker billed the move as a strategic shift rather than a fire sale.
“Fisker is strategically positioning the all-electric Ocean SUV to be a more affordable and compelling EV choice, competitively available to EV buyers in the broadest possible market,” the company said in announcing the price cuts.
The car itself has had some bad reviews. The Ocean was also the subject of a scathing review by American YouTube personality Marques Brownlee. His video was titled, “This is the Worst Car I’ve Ever Reviewed.”
“Do not buy this version of the Fisker Ocean,” reads the video’s description. Brownlee’s February 17 video has racked up more than 4.8 million views so far, and it sent Fisker’s stock price plunging after its release.
Fisker has said that problems with early versions of the vehicles’ software caused some of the negative responses. The company also said it plans to continue updating and improving the software through over the air updates that will be installed without the SUVs needing to be taken to a dealer or service center.
Fisker declined to say how the SUVs would be serviced in the event the company does go out of business. Fisker, founded in 2016 by a Danish auto designer named Henrik Fisker, had originally planned to sell and service vehicles itself, as other EV startups such as Tesla and Rivian do. Recently, though, Fisker shifted to recruiting independent dealers to sell vehicles the way more established automakers do.
By end of 2023, Fisker had signed up only 12 dealers in the United States and Europe, however.
Fisker had reported in early March that it could run out of cash to continue operations. Its SUVs are produced by the contract manufacturing company Magna Steyr in Austria. Last year, Magna produced more than 10,193 Fisker SUVs, but fewer than half of those were delivered to customers within the calendar year, the company announced in March.
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I don’t like big phones. They are cumbersome to carry, they don’t fit into most of my size of pockets or purses, and I’m constantly dropping them. I wasn’t made for larger phones. But I can’t deny that they have their advantages. The bigger the phone you go, the longer the battery you’ll have so you can watch TV and chortle on the train. Plus, most of the latest large phones have extra photography capabilities you won’t get with a small phone, like the ability to zoom in at a farther distance.
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Bigger phones also cost more, which can drag if you’re on a budget. So be strategic: if you go for a device with more display, you should know what the rest of the phone can do for you. Not all mega-phones are created equal—some are better at taking photos, while others exist simply for multitasking. If you’re not penny-pinching, you might also consider the latest large foldables, some of which are now offered with a discount that makes them easier to afford than when they initially debuted. Here’s what the big phone market looks like, including the ones that fold into tablets.
This year’s phones are some of the biggest they’ve ever been, though Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Ultra has the largest display as a traditional smartphone—it’s a 6.9-inch Super AMOLED display compared to, say, the iPhone 15 Pro Max’s 6.7-inch Super Retina XDR OLED display. Part of that extra screen on the Ultra makes it possible to enjoy the stowed S Pen on the bottom, which also acts as a camera remote for when you’re taking selfies from afar—I use it all the time to snap pictures of myself on my walks. How else would I prove that I take them?
The iPhone 15 Pro Max is another big phone favorite. There’s a bit more width to the Pro Max than the OnePlus 12, a narrow type of smartphone. You also get the added benefit of its three-tiered camera system and larger battery. One advantage to this big phone compared to an Android offering is the built-in Emergency SOS and Roadside Assistance via satellite offerings, which are nice to have when life gets unexpectedly perilous.
If the Pro Max’s $1,200 starting price range is a little steep and you want to stay on iOS, the iPhone 15 Plus is just as worthy. It also has a 6.7-inch display with a spectrum of pastel offerings.
The front of the OnePlus 12 is a 6.8-inch QHD+ display with up to 4,500 nits brightness in direct sunlight.Photo: Florence Ion / Gizmodo
If you’re considering carrying around this much product, you might as well get something with the best battery life. For Android users, that’s the OnePlus 12. It was the longest-lasting Android device in Gizmodo’s battery benchmarks. The OnePlus 12 is a 6.8-inch device with 16GB of RAM and a whopping 5,400 mAh battery—that’s how it managed up to 27 hours and 43 minutes of battery in our rundown tests.
Apple’s iPhone 15 Pro Max has the next best battery offering with 25 hours, followed by the newest Galaxy S24 Ultra with 23 hours and 22 minutes. Apple and Samsung devices have both been pretty steady about battery life. Your mileage will undoubtedly vary depending on how you use the devices. Our tests determine how long the phones last on screen for extended periods at around 200 nits.
How far do you want to zoom in? If you don’t mind a ton of algorithmic help, the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s four-part camera system can manage up to 100x digital zoom. If you need to peep at something too far away or too high up, that’s where the telephoto can help. It’s also nice to have different framing options offered by the Ultra’s varying focal lengths. The Ultra is capable of up to 5x optical zoom on its secondary 50-MP camera and up to 3x optical zoom on its tertiary 10-MP telephoto camera.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max has telephoto lenses that stick out and can manage up to 5x optical zoom.Photo: Florence Ion / Gizmodo
Apple’s iPhone 15 Pro Max and Pixel 8 Pro can also zoom in from far away. Both phones max out at 5x optical zoom, though the iPhone 15 Pro Max can handle up to 25x digital zoom and the Pixel 8 Pro up to 30x with “Super Res Zoom.”
I said that I don’t like big phones. But I adore the large folding ones because you can fold them up and put them into something else when you are not using the screen. I’ve shared my thoughts on Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 5 in our full review, and my opinion has remained largely the same: they are still too expensive to justify outright. That said, whenever I pick up the Z Fold 5, I am reminded of its utility as a tablet on the go.
Foldables are a great way to get a big phone that can fold up and disappear. Photo: Florence Ion / Gizmodo
The Z Fold 5 has other things going for it besides its 7.6-inch inner display. If you intend to use it like a tablet, you can buy an S Pen to unlock a few extra features. (Though I would recommend toting the S Pen around some other way than the official Slim Case because it falls out periodically.) There’s also a triple-lens camera system, plus up to 3x optical zoom.
OnePlus became a contender in the foldable game when it launched the OnePlus Open, one of the best foldables we reviewed last year after the Z Fold 5. There’s plenty to like about it: a solid hinge, a screen with no discernable crease, and a UI that is quite good at handling the multi-app experience of the inside screen. It even has 16GB of RAM, a hefty amount for a device with many screens.
Also, if you like to type with both thumbs and that’s why you’re looking to adopt a larger device, the foldable is the way to go. I’ve found it much faster at typing two-handed than the iPhone 15 Pro Max or Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Circle to Search can be used with the built-in S Pen on the Galaxy S24 Ultra.Photo: Florence Ion / Gizmodo
AI is a thing in this day and age, so we might as well lean in. Android is better suited for the so-called “AI future,” as it waves the freak flag for all to see. Apple’s approach is much more subdued, with its AI offerings sprinkled throughout iOS and the rest of the well-tended walled garden.
If you want to be on the equivalent of the cutting edge, then sign up for life with the Pixel 8 Pro. It’s the flagship from Google, which means it will be the device that showcases what Google’s AI smarts can do. One of our favorite features, Circle to Search, is limited to Google’s latest, anyway, and the Galaxy S24 Ultra. But it’s hard to tell how much feature parity Samsung’s Galaxy AI will have with Google’s Pixel hardware going forward.
Hey, quick question: If you had a spare $200,000 laying around in your bank account, what would you spend it on? You’d probably spend it on a house, or maybe a new car (several new cars?). What you probably wouldn’t do is drop that kind of cash on a 16-year-old iPhone. But that’s what happened over the weekend.
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The original iPhone was released all the way back in June 2007. At the time, Apple released two versions of what would become its most successful product ever: a 4GB storage model that cost $499 and an 8GB model that cost $599. And it’s that 4GB model that has become a bit of a collector’s item. This is because back in 2007 the 4GB version sold more slowly than its 8GB counterpart. Most people just paid the extra $100 to double the phone’s storage, and as a result, Apple discontinued the 4GB version just two months after its release, in September 2007. So there weren’t nearly as many of them out in the wild, and even fewer remained sealed in their boxes. That (sort of) explains why a sealed, mint condition iPhone 4GB from 2007 just sold at auction for $190,372.80.
LCG Auctions’ item description suggests that the old Apple phone is the “Holy Grail” among phone collectors. The phone up for auction was still factory sealed in its original box, and apparently in “exceptional condition.” LCGAuctions claimed the consignor was part of the original engineering team at Apple during the iPhone launch, possibly explaining how they got their hands on such a rare device and why they never opened it.
Other iPhones have sold for similarly high prices
This isn’t the first iPhone to sell for a large sum of money at auction. LCGAuctions cites a few other Apple devices that have, over the preceding nine months, sold for hard-to-believe prices, including two factory-sealed 8GB iPhones from the same era. One sold in October of last year for $39,339, and another hit $63,356 this past February. And yet another one of these old, original, and still-sealed iPhones sold this year for $40,000, bought (and opened) by YouTuber Marques Brownlee.
Marques Brownlee
What’s happening here? Well, some have suggested that many of these big-ticket auctions involving old tech, video games, and collectibles are part of some kind of money-laundering or price-fixing shenanigans. For example, some believe that video game auctions involving sealed copies of Nintendo gamesgoing for tens of thousands of dollars are part of some alleged racket involving item graders, auction houses, and rich clients. All companies involved have denied the claims, however, and there’s no direct evidence that suggests these recent iPhone auctions are part of some larger conspiracy or otherwise tied to illicit activities.
Regardless of what’s going on, if you want an old iPhone or other collectible tech item, you should probably buy it now before prices get even higher in the future. Maybe it’ll pay for your kid’s college, or the AI apps that they’ll need to compete in the 2040s job market or something.
