FiskerOcean One

　　

2023 Fisker Ocean Review

byBrian WongSenior Reviews Editor

　　Brian Wong has worked in the automotive industry since 2010, writing over 1,000 car-related articles and testing and reviewing hundreds of vehicles over the course of career. Brian is a senior reviews editor at zzdcar and has also contributed to Cars.com, Motor Authority and Green Car Reports. Brian has also been featured on MotorWeek as an expert for several car comparisons. He loves convertibles (the smaller the better) and hates paying for parking, so Los Angeles is both the right and wrong city for him.

　　

Pros

Roomy interior and seatingLong range and quick acceleration from dual-motor modelsEasy to see out of

Cons

Buggy or incomplete software and driver assist featuresNo support for Apple CarPlay or Android Auto smartphone integrationBrakes don't work smoothly in routine drivingLackluster value for what you pay

What's new

Fisker's first mass-market electric vehicle358 miles of zzdcar-tested range2023 model kicks off the first Ocean generation

　　

Overview

Fisker is looking to make a big splash (pun intended) with the introduction of its first mass-market electric vehicle, the Ocean. A tweener SUV that sits between compact and midsize, the Ocean arrives in both single- and dual-motor versions that cover a wide range of prices. Top versions offer up to an EPA-estimated 360 miles of range, which is more than what most other electric SUVs offer. Pleasingly, we found that to be accurate in our own real-world zzdcar EV Range Test, where we got 358 miles on a single charge. But like other new EVs from startup automakers, the Ocean is a work in progress, and software updates are likely to change everything from how it drives to the features owners will have access to over time.

　　

zzdcar spotlight: Vehicle software is a work in progress

The positive spin on modern vehicles' dependence on software is that there is great potential for a vehicle to improve and evolve via updates (over-the-air and otherwise). But the flip side is that many vehicles that are launched today can feel incomplete, and in the case of the Ocean, it goes to market with some features that you are paying for not yet activated. An example is adaptive cruise control, a feature that is supposed to be standard across the board for the Ocean but wasn't yet available at the time of our testing. In that way, the vehicle you're buying at this moment in time is not a fully realized product, and depending on your tolerance (and patience), this reality could make or break the Ocean for prospective buyers.

　　

Competitors to consider

The Ocean's wide price gap between its trim levels means that it competes across a few different classes and sizes of vehicles. At the bottom end, the base and midgrade models go up against other compact EV SUVs like the Tesla Model Y and Hyundai Ioniq 5. But the top trim levels are expensive enough that they will be considered against luxury vehicles, like the Genesis GV60 and GV70 Electrified. Read our test team's Expert Rating below for a full analysis of the Fisker Ocean's performance, technology features and more.

　　

What’s it like to live with?

We purchased a 2023 Fisker Ocean Extreme to join our long-term fleet in January 2024, to see how it holds up for 20,000 miles. We'll provide an update soon on how the vehicle has evolved and improved over the course of our ownership.