4 ms·
Oh, Cool, Our $69K Fisker Ocean Is Only Worth $21K Now
- coffeedan 3y agoI’ll take it off your hands for $10k.
- yau8edq12i 3y agoPro-tip: your car isn't a financial investment.
- tra3 3y agoBut it shouldn’t lose 2/3 of its value in a couple of months either.
- baq 3y agoOr... it shouldn't cost 300% its aftermarket value.
- erhaetherth 3y agoNo, but if you buy a car it's not unreasonable to expect to have a functional car you can drive for 5 years. If your car turns out to be a lemon and you want to sell it in the first year... well, that's a shitty situation regardless of "financial investments"
- yau8edq12i 3y agoWhy would other people want to buy your lemon for the price of a full car? Nothing works in this analogy.
- chgs 3y agoIf it’s not fit for purpose the person that sold it you has to take it back. Why pass to a greater fool?
- bananapub 3y agothis is an extremely stupid position - why on earth do you feel there is some vague right to offload your shitty car on to someone else for about what you paid for it?
- ablation 3y agoThat isn’t what the article is about. It states depreciation almost instantly after purchase is normal.
- reactordev 3y agoPretty sure the article is about it being abnormal to the percentage of 69.6% and to never buy a Fisker Ocean.
- irjustin 3y ago> Pro-tip: your car isn't a financial investment. Most people don't think of their car as an "investment vehicle" all puns intended.
- b3lvedere 3y agoThis is not about investement. This is about getting what you paid for. It seems such companies cannot be trusted by looking in their beautiful big blue eyes. Who would have thought? Nowadays if something you want to purchase (software, hardware, car, rocket ship, zen garden, whatever) "promises" to have certain features and functionality, you have to check thoroughly before buying into it.
- consp 3y agoIf you buy new, get one ready off the shelf. If you order and features are scrapped before delivery you usually will simply not get them as the contract states they might alter them at any time. One of the reasons to never buy new.
- yau8edq12i 3y agoDid they not get the car? I don't understand. If the car really is unfit for purpose, then the resale value is irrelevant - the manufacturer has to take it back and exchange it for a working car or refund it. But it's unlikely they'll do it without a lawsuit. (I also find the idea of trying to offload your non-working car on someone foolish enough to buy it on the resale market unethical.)
- b3lvedere 3y agoMy best guess is that their expectation of capabilities the car is nowhere near what the company actually deliverd. They were promised things within a certain future timeframe and the company did not produce these things within that certain timeframe.
- iancmceachern 3y agoCorrect, but it can be a pivotal part in investing in one's financial future. Example: financing a used civic to build your credit and use to deliver pizza to pay for college
- yau8edq12i 3y agoDoes the resale value of the civic you bought have any relevance in your story?
- iancmceachern 3y agoNone at all. I sold mine for less than it was worth to pay it forward to the next generation of pizza guy. I did so after it got me out of where I was from on my way to where and whom I am today. I'm confident it did the same thing for that next pizza guy. For the right people, these things are tools, not financial burdens. Leasing a new BMW, now that's definitely a financial burden and is not this.
- kgabis 3y agoIt all sounds quite dystopic, from credit voodoo to having to pay for education.
- dehrmann 3y agoImagine how much parts will cost if Fisker goes out of business. You almost have to buy an extra two of them to be parts donors.
- akira2501 3y ago"Move fast and break things" as applied to environmental problems have hilariously bad results.
- mrighele 3y agoOn the bright side, the part donors will not be expensive to buy.
- rob74 3y agoWell, now you can (in theory) buy more than three of them for the (former) price of one, so the only problem is where to store the two part donors... Of course, the $21K is what you would be getting when you sell it, not what you would be paying if you want to buy a used one.
- smackeyacky 3y agoTrying to fast track being Jaguar is not a viable business model apparently
- londons_explore 3y agoI think the key issue is that when the OEM doesn't exist, software issues can likely never be fixed, and might make the car undrivable. For example, imagine the root filesystem of the infotainment system gets full with logs. Now it won't boot. But that system uses secure boot/disk encryption so you can't go in and fix it. And btw, the infotainment not working means the car can't be shifted into drive. No mechanic can fix that. The security features mean the parts can't be swapped from one car to another, and besides, even if you could do swaps, any swapped unit will get the same fault as the first. That is why the car valuation has dropped so much. The high chance that within a few years it becomes undrivable and unfixable.
- akmarinov 3y agoThanks MKBHD
- bufferoverflow 3y agoBlame the company that made a bad product, not the person who pointed out the bad parts.
- yurishimo 3y agoHave you seen the new video that went up yesterday? He reviewed the 2.0 software. Some stuff was fixed, but a lot still left on the table. Unfortunately, Fisker kinda screwed themselves when they broke OTA updates for v1 cars. Maybe they could have gotten themselves out of the media black hole a bit better if they could push fixes without requiring a technician.
- londons_explore 3y agoIf the company is bankrupt, the ota process is irrelevant
- petters 3y agoTheir stock is delisted with a non-existing market cap. Of course no one wants to buy that car right now
- karma_pharmer 3y agoMIPS has been bankrupt multiple times and is now defunct but I still buy routers with their chips in them. The problem with current EVs is that they're smartphones with wheels. Only the manufacturer can service them. So you can't buy their product without betting on the company's future like you can with, say, an open-architecture general-purpose computer (those are getting rarer too). Bring back the original Tesla Roadster and Nissan Leaf.
- upupupandaway 3y agoIt seems to me that the right move here is to buy not one, but two Fisker Oceans from the used market: one for daily use and another for spare parts. This will cost only $42k, which is still 40% cheaper than one new.
- Zetobal 3y agoHow bad software can fuck your company 101.
- M95D 3y agoJust open-source the firmware. I'm sure someone will make a project to add 150% of advertised features, and the kitchen sink. And then possibly apply it to other cars, like it happend with DD-WRT.
- robocat 3y agoIf you are young maybe invest in a mint one because it will be a rare collectable in a few decades? Just like the Stanley Steamer.
- golem14 3y agoHard pass. You will likely need ongoing support from the manufacturer. A Tesla is probably not indefinitely supported and might need security and other updates to properly function, for remote operations, navigation, entertainment etc.
- juliusdavies 3y agoIsn’t the appraisal offer they got an actual real offer to buy the car right there on the spot for cash from the appraisal company? If that’s the case then it’s not really a fair offer. It’s an offer the appraisal company is confident it can safely make a profit on through subsequent resale.
- qball 3y agoIt was only ever worth 21K to begin with and the real trick was convincing you otherwise. See, cars have been in a bubble for the last 8 years because a negative real interest rate drove the existence of $70K SUVs/trucks and $40K cars in the first place. Which is why used cars sometimes exceed the price of new cars, and why people expect minimal depreciation from new vehicles today. And sure, I'd buy a Fisker Ocean for 21,000 dollars; parts aren't going to be a concern because all the EV fans tell me they're basically maintenance free and will definitely never need soon-to-be-unobtanium suspension parts (which aren't really wear parts in the same way tires and brakes are) or a fix for that tilting screen gimmick.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- drcongo 3y agoSearching AutoTrader here in the UK sadly has lower spec models than this at > £50k. If you actually could buy this spec for $21k I'd be first in the queue.
- Arnt 3y agoSo it depreciated by maybe $20k extra, and their advice is not to buy such a car. Bad advice. "past performance is no guarantee of future results" and definitely not after such a drop. A price that starts at $69k can't drop by $20k very many times: $0 is a hard limit and even twice is difficult to believe.
- cbsmith 3y agoWhile I am sure the overall narrative is accurate, appraisals tend to be less accurate when there are few transactions occurring for a product. I imagine the appraiser had a hell of a time assigning any value (including $0) to much of the car.