Fisker Ocean Hit With Another Safety Recall, the Door Handles Can Stick and Fail To Open

Back on March 19, the safety boffins at Fisker met with NHTSA representatives to address door handles that can stick, preventing the doors from being opened. A containment action was implemented by the supplier - J.P. Chevalier – on March 26. Another containment action was initiated on May 17. Nearly a month later on June 14, the Fisker Decision Committee finally decided to recall the potentially affected SUVs.

As it happens, the root cause of the sticky door handles is attributed to dimensional variation in the door handle's chassis width. These inconsistencies may lead to friction during handle retraction and deployment, hence the sticky part. Fisker claims that said condition was corrected in production back on March 18, which implies that a certain someone has been playing for time.

Considering that Fisker has recently defaulted on a one-month loan totaling $3.5 million, are you even surprised? Even though Fisker is being liquidated as we speak, the ailing company intends to inspect all four door handles on each vehicle. Technicians are required to use a specialized force-checking tool provided by the supplier. If said tool indicates not okay, the suspect outer door handle will be replaced.

Fisker expects owner notification letters to be mailed by August 30, informing them of the recall condition. By then, it's likely that every single owner will have already learned about said recall and condition from the media. Over in the United States, affected vehicles carry production dates beginning with February 9, 2023 and ending with May 31, 2024. All of them feature 17-character VINs beginning with the characters VCF1.

Fisker presently lists 12 dealer partners in the United States, of which Fisker of San Jose reads "opening soon" on the automaker's website. A much-hyped startup with big plans, Henrik Fisker's outfit made $273 million last year in terms of sales but reported more than $1 billion in debt. According to the Chapter 11 filings, the company owes Heights Capital Management in excess of $183 million in principal payments.

To come up with that money, Fisker wants to sell assets worth anything between $500 million and $1 billion. Bear in mind that's a range provided by Fisker, meaning that said assets could be overvalued. As per the latest filings to date, Fisker is down 75 percent from its peak in terms of workforce, with only 181 employees remaining in the United States, 70 in Germany, 23 in Austria, and 57 in India.

Given the aforementioned, fingers crossed replacement door handles are indeed coming to dealers nationwide for the *checks notes* third recall of the Ocean electric sport utility vehicle. Previously recalled for incorrectly displayed warning lights and iffy software for the motor control unit and vehicle control unit, Ocean is the subject of no fewer than four ODI investigations and a plethora of complaints. The NHTSA's website presently shows a total 211 complaints.

On Fisker's website, Ocean continues to be advertised with up to $24,000 off the original suggested retail price. While that may not be weird, it certainly is weird to see the configurator online, allowing you – the prospective customer – to choose between three grades. The most expensive of the bunch stickers at $61,499 with 360 miles (579 kilometers) of range to its name.