The Vegan-Friendly Fisker Ocean Electric SUV

Last year Gregs introduced their vegan sausage roll and now automotive manufacturer Fisker has decided to one-up them by launching a vegan-friendly electric SUV!

We are getting to a stage where announcements of pending all-electric supercar automobiles with claimed acceleration figures from 0-60mph in under 4 seconds is almost the norm now. Regardless of real world figures, this just goes to show how electric battery powered vehicle technology is advancing at a pretty fast rate. Distance travelled between charge figures for performance EV vehicles are also now increasingly showing to be in the 250-300-plus mile bracket.

The next electric car with a 300-mile range comes from Fisker in the guise of the pleasantly named Ocean. The Ocean will be a luxury SUV with an open top ‘California Mode’ option, thanks to a button that operates a solar panel incorporating electric roof, as well as simultaneously opening every piece of glass apart from the windscreen. This ties in with Fisker’s cryptic comments at the start of last year, when the company promised an ‘extended open-air atmosphere’. The solar panels cover the whole of the roof area and are expected to offer around 1,000 miles of free travel per year – though that figure may be a tad optimistic for drivers in the UK.

If the Fisker name sounds familiar, it’s because the company isn’t new to the cutting edge of electric and hybrid automotive design, having emerged in 2009 with the Surf, a plug-in hybrid with an all-electric range of 50 miles. In 2012, the Atlantic hybrid was revealed with an electric range of 30 miles. The immediate future for Fisker was not as bright as expected though, as Hurricane Sandy decided to wreck the company’s entire shipment bound for Europe that same year, and send the company on a downward spiral.

Things look pleasantly brighter today though I’m pleased to say, with Fisker Inc being founded by the original owner Henrik Fisker and launched in South California in 2016.

The Ocean will be available in both rear-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive options. The base model will not get AWD but will benefit from the proposed 300-mile range, while the AWD version will most likely be nearer the 250-mile range mark.

The Ocean has its eco-heart in the right place, and despite the previous wrath of Hurricane Sandy, wants to be world and nature-friendly –Fisker clearly doesn’t bear grudges. The inside features a leather-free interior that Fisker says is vegan friendly. No, that doesn’t mean you can eat it if you break down on a deserted highway, but it does mean that the parts that make up the whole have been thoughtfully sourced, from carpets made from recycled fishing nets and trim made from recycled T-shirts. The Dinamica seat material consists of recycled tees and plastic and polyester fibres, all with a rayon backing. Suddenly, the SUV’s name starts to make sense – and anything that helps to keep discarded nets out of the ocean should be applauded.

It looks nice too, just as you might expect from the man that put pen to paper to come up with the design for the previous Aston Martin Vantage. He also had a hand in the way the BMW Z8 looks too.

If we dig a bit deeper than the forthcoming broad-market SUV, then we can see that Fisker also has plans to produce a high-performance Ocean with a claimed 0-60mph figure of less than 3 seconds… We’ll have to wait for more information on that version though – Fisker Inc has mastered the art of trickle teasing release and tech info to keep interest flowing.

Fisker actually proves to be quite a metaphorical wall chart for the advancement of EV technology. When we think back to those early hybrids offering a 50-mile (all-electric) range in 2011 and then compare the new Fisker Inc offerings, we can see why the electric vehicle is generally now agreed to be the future, leaving other ‘green’ vehicle options in its wake.