- Fisker's bankruptcy liquidation was approved by a judge yesterday.
- American Lease, the company that wants to buy the remaining 3,000+ unsold Ocean EVs, agreed to pay extra to keep cloud services running.
- Additionally, the Fisker Owners Association gained access to the car's core software.
Fisker Ocean owners will continue to have their electric crossovers connected to the cloud. This means features like remote diagnostics, software updates and remote access will continue functioning normally and without interruption.
The news comes after American Lease, the New York-based company that wants to buy roughly 3,000 unsold Ocean EVs at a heavy discount, agreed to pay extra to keep the cloud connection alive. Fisker, which filed for bankruptcy in June, had its revised liquidation plan approved by a Delaware judge yesterday.
Earlier this week, American Lease filed an emergency objection to the plan after Fisker said it would be impossible to port the vehicle data to another server, effectively ending cloud connectivity for all Ocean EVs. According to Reuters, American Lease agreed to pay an additional $2.5 million for future tech support services–on top of the $46 million for the roughly 3,200 unsold EVs that were part of the original deal.
Additionally, the Fisker Owners Association (FOA), a volunteer-founded community of owners and supporters that came together after the automaker's troubles began surfacing, said there's more good news. Apart from cloud control, the association will gain access to the vehicle’s core software, the Fisker After Sales Tool (FAST) diagnostic tools, an engineering help desk, and the capability to phase out or upgrade outdated features.
This means that other providers and partners could potentially fix software issues and provide over-the-air updates that were promised but never delivered by Fisker. For instance, adaptive cruise control, a feature that was sold by Fisker but never implemented on customer cars, could be added via a software upgrade.
Gallery: 2023 Fisker Ocean
“All EVs on the road today depend heavily on cloud services, making this guarantee of five years of seamless access control and connectivity a critical service–not to mention peace of mind–for all Fisker Ocean owners," said Cristian Fleming, co-founder of the Fisker Owners Association. "Even better, it grants our team and partners access to essential components and tools to ensure that we can provide the experience and peace of mind owners deserve.”
As part of the bankruptcy liquidation, the remaining inventory of unsold vehicles will go to American Lease. Fisker Inc. will use the money from the transaction to pay off creditors, who will also get the rights to the automaker's intellectual property.
