Imagine picking up a brand-new electric crossover. You’ve only had it a few months when the company contacts you: You need to bring your car in for important recall work. Handing over your keys is the last time you’ll ever see your new EV intact. It disappears for months, before reappearing in a scrapyard — totaled.

Luckily for us, this EV’s owners aren’t just any drivers. The car in question is part of MotorTrend’s long-term test fleet, so the publication has written a play-by-play of the bizarre incident. The model in question is a 2023 Fisker Ocean Extreme.

Henrik Fisker founded his first self-named car company in 2007. But the Fisker Inc. that built the Ocean was officially founded in 2016. It released the Ocean electric SUV in 2023. By early 2024, however, it was clear the company had serious financial problems. Fisker defaulted on short-term loans, offered its final Ocean SUVs for just a few thousand dollars, and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2024.

As the situation at Fisker grew dire, MotorTrend reached out about leasing an Ocean for its long-term vehicle test fleet. It’s a bit surprising the automaker agreed. But the resulting story is a fascinating look at what happens to surplus vehicles as an automaker goes under.

The reviewers concluded the Ocean was a great-looking SUV and a very functional EV. But even 10 months after the automaker launched the vehicle, their test model was riddled with software bugs. Most notably, it locked itself to a charging port on a road trip and wouldn’t let go. A major safety concern was that it intermittently announced its radar system wasn’t working and shut down all its driver-aid safety features, such as automatic emergency braking.

As Fisker’s financial situation worsened, MotorTrend wondered whether the automaker would try to take back the SUV to sell off and settle its debts — or perhaps forget the publication had one at all amid layoffs. Then someone reached out to say the SUV was in dire need of bankruptcy-mandated recall work. So MotorTrend handed over the keys.

What Happens to Inventory When an Automaker Declares Bankruptcy?

When a company declares Chapter 11, the court orders it to auction off all its assets and settle as much of its debt as possible. So that means MotorTrend’s test Ocean should have gone to the highest bidder, right? Not quite.

After weeks of back-and-forth, MotorTrend’s contacts at Fisker finally admitted the SUV wasn’t in for recall work. It was gone. Someone told them it was on a truck for New York.

Why New York? The journalists did some digging and found that hesitant buyers were only paying a few thousand dollars for the final “new” Ocean SUVs. So American Lease had swept in and made a deal for 3,200 unsold EVs, as well as the automaker’s source code and diagnostic software. Its goal was to have a large supply of SUVs for spare parts and the tools to keep them on the road so buyers might pay more for its “new” Oceans. Many damaged or used Oceans American Lease bought ended up at an auto shop where they were parted out. MotorTrend assumed its SUV was one of these. Then the MotorTrend Fisker popped up for sale.

MotorTrend discovered its Fisker Ocean had never left California. Someone — perhaps an ex-employee — had been driving it for a while and parking it at a nearby apartment building. But in just five months it had rear-ended something hard enough to deploy its airbags, been totaled, and auctioned for parts on Copart. The final bid for the two-year-old EV was just over $4,000. The bizarre thing is that the lithium in its large battery pack was worth nearly that much.