Starting a new car company isn't easy—just ask Henrik Fisker, whose second bite at that particular cherry ended the same way as his first when it filed for bankruptcy this July. At the time, Fisker said it wanted to try to "preserve certain customer programs," but Ars wondered what this actually meant, particularly now that electric vehicles are so dependent on software support and cloud connectivity. Now, thanks to a recent court filing spotted by TechCrunch, we know the answer: nothing good.
Car publications were already warning consumers to steer clear of the Ocean as early as this March, despite massive price cuts that saw these electric SUVs being offered for less than $25,000. A New York-based company called American Lease was less deterred by this warning and in June agreed to purchase the remaining Fisker inventory—approximately 3,300 cars for a total of $46.3 million dollars. By October, American Lease had paid Fisker $42.5 million and had taken delivery of about 1,100 Oceans.
That was the plan until the end of last week, at least. Last Friday evening, Fisker informed American Lease that the Oceans "cannot, as a technical matter, be 'ported' from the Fisker server to which the vehicles are currently linked to a distinct server owned and/or controlled by" American Lease.