Fisker Pear EV still on track for £25k price tag
New render reveals the Fisker Pear's wraparound rear light bar
MG 4 rival will be detailed at an investor day alongside new Ronin sports car and Alaska pick-up
US electric vehicle start-up Fisker has outlined some of the ways it will keep the start price of its forthcoming Pear small SUV below $30,000, including fitting a compact new electronic architecture.
The company showed new sketches of the car in an investor presentation on Monday, previewing a continuous light strip around the rear window as well as a new visual treatment of the side windows.
The Pear will be revealed in prototype form at an investor day later this year, CEO Henrik Fisker said on an earnings call with analysts on Monday. The company has previously said first deliveries will start in 2024.
Fisker will also reveal the Ronin electric sports car at the investor day as well as the Alaska, a pick-up version of the company’s Ocean SUV. No date was given for the investor day.
Fisker now has 5600 preorders for the Pear, and will honour its original promise to make it affordable. “It will come out at $29,900 [£24,700],” said Henrik Fisker.
The car has been designed with “a new set of automotive specifications”, said Fisker, meaning that the company didn’t carry over those for the more expensive Ocean. He hinted that the company would build fewer prototypes, also saving money.
The car has been built around a new electric architecture that will be powered by fewer, more centralised ECUs. “Besides reduction of the BoM [bill of materials] cost, it increases the performance drastically,” said Burkhard Huhnke, Fisker’s chief technology officer, on the call.
The Pear would be “driven by software, not hardware”, said Geeta Gupta-Fisker, Fisker’s chief financial officer, on the call. The move to a more centralised computer system to reduce complexity and improve processing power is a trend being followed by all automotive manufacturers as they look to make their cars smarter and updatable over the air.
The Pear will be also be based on a dedicated steel platform, which will be cheaper than the aluminium skateboard architecture of the Ocean. Two battery sizes will be offered. “This may be a second EV for many. They may not need to carry around a giant expensive battery if they're only using it as a city car,” said Henrik Fisker. The version with the largest battery will travel more than 300 miles on a charge, claimed Fisker.
The Fisker Pear will be built by technology manufacturing giant Foxconn at a facility in Ohio previously owned by General Motors, Fisker has said previously. No mention was made of the Foxconn deal in the investor call.
Fisker has suffered delays in testing the Ocean ahead of deliveries, with homologation now due to finish in March, Henrik Fisker said on the call. “I had expected us to be further along when we last spoke in November, but we encountered some testing delays,” he said. “We are confident we will be ready for customer deliveries once we have received the required regulatory certifications.”
Fisker said it has stuck with its 2023 production target of 42,400 Oceans, which are being built by Magna in Graz, Austria, in the same factory as the Jaguar I-Pace.