I’m a sucker for a good car deal. Even shady-looking, super-unreliable cars can tempt me, if the price is right. That old Alfa 159 is only $1,500? Let’s do it. However, I don’t know if I’m quite as brave as YouTuber and car builder Rich Benoit, who just bought a fire-sale Fisker Ocean for $10,000. But would you be?
There may not be a faster, more extreme flame-out of a car company in history than Fisker’s. Henrik Fisker’s second attempt at an electric vehicle brand once had a stock evaluation of nearly $3 billion and then quickly took a turn for the worse when it fumbled the launch of the Ocean, its first-ever product. Now that the brand has filed for bankruptcy, it’s selling off inventory at shockingly cheap prices to make back as much money as possible to pay down debts. That’s why Benoit could snag what used to be a $40,000 electric SUV at minimum for just $10,000.
Naturally, Fisker didn’t crash and burn for no reason. Production delays and quality issues plagued the Ocean SUV, causing demand for the few cars it could produce to drop off completely. As interesting of a product as the Ocean is, it suffered from far too many problems, ranging from software failures to build quality issues. Is that the sort of car you want to buy, for any price? And since Fisker as a company is toast, it’s not like you’ll be able to take your Ocean to the dealer to have it repaired in the future. Even if you wanted to fix it yourself, good luck finding parts or experts able to diagnose software issues.
However, for $10,000, it might be worth the risk. The Fisker Ocean is a deeply flawed car, but it’s still pretty cool. It looks good, has a stylish, if a bit spartan, interior, and comes with an all-electric powertrain. At ten grand, there isn’t even close to a better deal for a new car. For comparison, the penalty box that is the Mitsubishi Mirage starts at almost $18,000, and that subcompact is likely getting canned very soon. (Its arch rival, the Nissan Versa, reportedly isn’t far behind.) I’m not sure where Benoit got one so cheap—with only 376 miles on it, no less, as I can’t find a similar bargain online anywhere in the country—but Google shows plenty in the low-$20,000 range.
If you could find a Fisker Ocean for anywhere near the price Benoit paid, would you take the gamble?
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