Fisker Ocean wants to be a sustainable, affordable electric SUV

Fisker’s upcoming SUV first promised to be affordable enough. Now it’s promising to be environmentally friendly. It all starts with the car name.

The car brand from famous vehicle designer Henrik Fisker unveiled the name of its first upcoming all-electric SUV on Thursday: Ocean.

The name is meant to encompass all the sustainability built into what’s expected to be a roughly $40,000 vehicle, on par with pricing for Tesla’s coming-soon compact SUV, the Model Y.

The 80-kWh lithium-ion battery gets up to 300 miles on a single charge, which is the first step to lower carbon emissions. 

Then there’s the car design with a solar roof, expected to provide up to 1,000 miles of clean energy. The carpeting is all made from recycled fishing net from bodies of water; all interior materials are vegan; and even the suede materials are made from recycled bottles and other plastic. Rubber that’s usually dumped while making tires will be reused.

These are some of the eco-friendly features revealed so far, but ultimately building a car, electric motors, and batteries isn’t the most sustainable activity. So Fisker is trying to squeeze as much sustainability into the vehicle as possible.

The Ocean is slated to start production by the end of 2021 and arrive some time in 2022, but pre-orders open up next month on Nov. 27 when the Fisker mobile app also launches. The pricing will be announced then, too. The car’s global unveiling — meaning a real look at how it, well, looks — is set for early January.