Fisker Selects CATL To Provide 2 Types Of Lithium Ion Cells For New EV

Henrik Fisker’s eponymous electric vehicle company will be unveiling the production version of its first product, the Ocean SUV, in two weeks at the Los Angeles Auto Show. At that time we’ll be getting a whole lot more details on the vehicle and Fisker’s go to market strategy. Ahead of the show, Fisker has revealed that Chinese battery supplier CATL will be building the cells and battery packs that go into the Ocean. 

The Ocean is scheduled to start volume production in the fall of 2022 at the Magna Steyr assembly plant in Graz, Austria. Partnering with Magna on engineering and manufacturing is likely to be a key factor that may aid the success of the current iteration of Fisker Inc. 

CATL is the largest producer of electric vehicle batteries in the world and supplies many Chinese domestic OEMs as well as non-Chinese automakers including Tesla

TSLA
, Volkswagen and Ford. Adding CATL to the Fisker mix should further reinforce the effort to launch a new brand.

The Ocean is based on a Magna-developed EV platform and Fisker has worked closely with both Magna and CATL to meet its performance, range and cost goals. The Ocean has a starting price of $37,500 before the federal tax credit. In order to help meet that price point, the base Ocean Sport will utilize lithium iron phosphate batteries (LFP). 

Fisker isn’t revealing the expected range just yet. “We don’t have any standard range. We’re gonna have a long range and a really long range,” said founder and CEO Henrik Fisker. “One of the main goals when we started developing this car was how can we make a electric vehicle which is affordable, yes, yet premium and it needs to kind of span from some different needs.”

LFP batteries are considerably less expensive than nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) battery chemistry but also has about 35-40% less energy density which means a shorter range. For most drivers, a range of 250-270 miles is generally going to be more than adequate. 75% of people drive less than 40 miles per day. LFP batteries are also more stable than NMC and almost impervious to the sort of thermal runaway that has caused battery fires in other EVs. Tesla recently announced that standard range versions of the Model 3 and Model Y would now be equipped with LFP batteries globally after launching that type in the Chinese market earlier. 

For those truly in need of longer driving range, CATL will also supply battery packs filled with NMC cells. These will come at a higher price point, but that hasn’t been announced yet. 

While most other details have yet to be revealed, Fisker did share that Magna’s prototype line in Graz will be producing about 2 Oceans per day starting in the first quarter of 2022. During the course of the year, production will move to the main line and begin ramping up. 

“It just shows you kind of what it means for us to be together with somebody like Magna. It’s important because it really shows we can scale up and our vehicle is a higher volume vehicle,” added Fisker. “Our our objective is to get well over 50,000 vehicles a year and hopefully eventually to over 100,000 vehicles a year.”

This won’t be Fisker’s first attempt at starting a new automaker. The last one ended in bankruptcy in 2012 although the remains of that company were eventually revived as Karma Automotive. Fisker is taking a much more pragmatic approach this time and has lined up capable partners with the engineering expertise and resources to succeed. There are still no guarantees of success, but the foundation appears to be more solid for this attempt.