Courtesy of Auto Focus
- YouTuber Marques Brownlee's negative review of Fisker's Ocean SUV made waves on social media.
- A video of an apparent attempt from a Fisker employee to get in touch with Brownlee has also gone viral.
- A Fisker spokesperson told BI it responds to feedback and has begun rolling out a software update.
YouTuber Marques Brownlee called Fisker's EV "the worst car I've ever reviewed," and his negative review has turned into quite the saga online.
Brownlee's lackluster review of the Fisker Ocean SUV generated over 4.3 million views on YouTube over the past two weeks. In the video, Brownlee points out several software-related concerns, including warning lights that came on multiple times and the inability to monitor the car's solar roof output. He also ran into repeated issues with the car's key fob, among other complaints about the vehicle.
Brownlee, who said he declined to participate in any paid or sponsored coverage with the brand, originally asked Fisker to provide a vehicle to review, but he said they kept delaying. So instead he found a third party willing to let him borrow the car — J&S Mitsubishi.
Fisker found out Brownless got the car from an outside source and asked him to wait until the car could receive a big 2.0 software update before reviewing it, Brownlee said.
He declined.
"It's not really in my policy to wait on promised future software updates,'" Brownlee said in the YouTube video. "I'm going to review the car that's out now, that real buyers are actually living with."
Brownlee went on to do his review and posted the video online on February 17. The YouTube star gave a shout-out to the dealer, J&S Mitsubishi, in his video.
And then things got strange.
A viral TikTok
Several days later on Sunday, George Saliba, the owner and general manager of J&S Mitsubishi, posted a video on TikTok of a phone conversation he had with an individual who identified themself as a Fisker senior field service engineer. The video was recorded without Fisker's knowledge.
"Can I pull your fingernails out as part of an inquisition?" the person said with a laugh after introducing himself as a Fisker engineer, according to the video of the phone call posted on TikTok. "I'm gonna ask you a couple of questions if you don't mind."
"We have a customer who we believe bought a car from you who is blowing up social media and we're trying to track him down," the person said, later adding that his review had caught the attention of "all of senior management."
In the video, the individual who said he worked for Fisker asks for Brownlee's contact information and the VIN numbers of any Fisker Oceans the dealership sold.
Saliba explains to the person on the phone that the Fisker in question is his, and Brownlee doesn't own the car that he reviewed — he simply borrowed it. The individual on the phone said Fisker was trying to get in touch to send someone out to update the car's software, and that now that he knows Brownlee isn't the owner, he could schedule someone to help Saliba out in the next few days.
The software update "will fix a lot of problems, but it's not the holy grail of fixing Fisker, that I'll be quite candid about," the man on the phone said. "It's still got some holes in it. We still got some more software to redo. We've got a little bit more to revisit, but it will make the car markedly improved."
While it's not uncommon for a carmaker to try to address issues raised in a negative review, the series of events further captured the public eye. Saliba's video has generated over 3.4 million views since it was shared on Sunday. Its popularity appears to have led to even more people viewing Brownlee's car review — which was the most-viewed video on his car review channel as of Tuesday.
A spokesperson for Fisker declined to comment on the TikTok video.
"We did see George's TikTok over the weekend," Miles Somerville, a producer for Brownlee's YouTube channel, said in an emailed statement. "It appears as though Fisker goes about handling unbiased reviews differently than most. But we've been in communication with the Fisker team to potentially get hands-on with an Ocean model with updated software. That might happen at some point in the future."
A spokesperson for Fisker told BI the company has been monitoring customer feedback since the vehicle was launched last year and its latest software update has already begun going out to customers.
"Fisker continues to introduce new features which improve both driving performance and comfort," the spokesperson said. "As adoption grows and the number of drivers and miles driven increases, our innovations are tested under a wider range of conditions that reveal ways we can improve. Almost all the issues that have been identified were confined to early-build vehicles, and we are working with early adopters to address issues they might have had."
Despite the negative review, Brownlee said the car wasn't all bad and he enjoyed the look of the vehicle.
"I think the theme here is it's just a young company that doesn't really know exactly what they're doing with a lot of these choices yet," Brownlee said.
He also said he was open to revisiting the car to see if the software update fixes some of his gripes, but that he's not sure all of his complaints could be addressed merely through software changes.
The automaker released the Fisker Ocean SUV in June 2023. During the company's earnings call last week, it warned that Fisker might not have enough funds to survive 2024.
The company is Fisker's second automotive startup. His previous startup, Fisker Automotive, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2013. Fisker launched his second automotive company in 2016.
Do you work at an EV dealership or own a Fisker? Reach out to the reporter from a non-work email and device at gkay@businessinsider.com