Fisker went bankrupt and owners built open source car company from the ashes
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After Fisker Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2024, roughly 11,000 Fisker Ocean owners faced the prospect of their $40,000–$70,000 EVs becoming inoperable as cloud-dependent software systems went dark. In response, owners formed the Fisker Owners Association (FOA), a 4,000-member nonprofit that reverse-engineered proprietary firmware, mapped CAN bus networks, published open-source tools on GitHub, organized bulk parts purchases, and launched mobile repair programs in Europe. Technical highlights include a Home Assistant integration exposing the car's cloud API, published CAN bus DBC files, and community guides for sniffing CAN traffic and decoding diagnostic trouble codes. A $2.5 million deal with American Lease to preserve cloud services collapsed over a refusal to provide itemized invoices, cutting remote connectivity for owners. The story raises broader questions about software escrow mandates, right-to-repair legislation, and open-source requirements for cloud-dependent vehicles, as more EV startups face potential bankruptcy.
