Fisker just debuted a trio of ambitious EVs: a mind-bending hypercar, an affordable subcompact crossover, and a mid-size electric pickup.
Fisker, maker of the Ocean all-electric SUV released earlier this year, unveiled a trio of exciting new electric vehicles each aiming separately at the bottom, middle, and top of the EV market. These included the hotly anticipated new Ronin EV sport coupe, the PEAR subcompact, and a new electric pickup, the Fisker Alaska. Can Fisker’s lineup make a dent in the increasingly competitive EV space? Time will tell, but these new vehicles offer a glimpse into a unique approach from the fledgling EV maker.
By far the most compelling of Fisker’s new vehicles is the Ronin electric hypercar (ronin being a masterless samurai and/or the DeNiro/John Frankenheimer movie featuring some of the greatest car chases ever put to film, both worthy allusions for a new EV super coupe).
The Fisker Ronin is not your typical, everyday EV supercar. It will feature three electric motors combining for over 1,000 horsepower and a zero to sixty time of approximately two seconds. For a performance EV with a price tag well into the six-figure range (more on that in a bit), such speed is par for the course. That being the case, Fisker has gone out of its way to differentiate the Ronin from the rest of the EV supercar crowd, starting with its purported 600-mile range and how it’s achieved.
Unlike most modern EVs, where the battery pack is located under the floor of the vehicle spread out flat from axle to axle, the Ronin spreads out its batteries throughout the chassis and body, allowing for more total batteries (Fisker has not yet released the total size) and for greater cabin space.
Which gets us to the Ronin’s other unique feature, it is a 2+3 four-door coupe. Yes, you read that right. The Ronin will offer bench seating for three in back and small rear-hinging rear doors, a la the Mazda RX-8, for ease of ingress/egress. That these doors and the front pair are of the butterfly variety is only natural. The Ronin’s carbon fiber roof will be removable for open air excitement as well.
Fisker is positioning the Ronin as a proper EV hypercar and pricing it accordingly. Per their website, the Ronin will start at a dizzying $385,000. Production is expected to commence in the second half of 2024 for a 2025 release.
At the opposite end of the pricing and style spectrum is Fisker’s second electric SUV, a new subcompact crossover called the PEAR. The PEAR is a size smaller than the current Fisker Ocean and is built on a different platform. Fisker says the PEAR represents a simplified EV construction, 35 percent fewer parts than equivalent EVs, which enables a lower price point. The PEAR, thusly, starts just under $30,000.
Notably, the PEAR will come with seating for up to six, trading a center console for a front row bench. Other unique features include an EV frunk that opens drawer-like and a tailgate that vertically drops down into a recess in the bumper.
The PEAR will be built in the US and therefore will be eligible for at least some, if not all, current federal EV tax incentives. That, in turn, could make the Fisker PEAR one of, if not the most affordable EV on the market. Fisker is planning for a mid-2025 release for the PEAR.
In between the PEAR and the Ronin sits the Fisker Alaska, an all-new and as of a few days ago, unknown electric pickup. The Alaska will be built on the same basic architecture as the Fisker Ocean with slightly diminished range figures of 230 to 340 miles. Like the PEAR and Ronin, the Alaska does have a few notable quirks. The first being a drop-down mid-gate, reminiscent of the Chevy Avalanche or current Silverado EV, which expands the bed from 4.5 to 9.2 feet. The Fisker Alaska will be positioned right in the middle of the automotive market, and slightly below the EV average, at around $45,000.
All of this is extremely ambitious for a rebooted car company. Henrik Fisker’s first venture, Fisker Automotive, built the excellent but ultimately unsuccessful Fisker Karma before folding in 2012, and the new company, Fisker Inc., has taken its time getting their first vehicle, the Ocean, from blueprint to production to customer driveways. Is having something for every EV buyer the key to success in this time of flux in the automotive market? It looks like the next few years for Fisker will offer us a clue, along with some interesting EVs.