from Hacker News

Bankrupt Fisker says it can't migrate its EVs to a new owner's server

by stirlo on 10/9/24, 2:50 PM with 21 comments

  • by inhumantsar on 10/9/24, 3:00 PM

    Rich Rebuilds on YouTube bought a cheap Fiskar Ocean and documented his work getting it running and trying to get a software update for it.

    https://youtu.be/b_OxgAYG0Io?si=rT_UFWTc5v6t58nb

    https://youtu.be/WLGaAE4_RjQ?si=sSNi5Pg4DEccUgXr

    https://youtu.be/qzy7-UXLdH4?si=L1kjOZpQOmhD4JSu

    If a vehicle is going to be completely dependent on software for basic functions, then owners should be able to at least replace or patch that software with standardized freely available tools.

  • by interestica on 10/9/24, 4:05 PM

    Wait so carmakers can also now pull the Adobe “we retired the activation servers and you can no longer use the thing you bought”?

  • by outworlder on 10/9/24, 6:08 PM

    "Oceans "cannot, as a technical matter, be 'ported' from the Fisker server to which the vehicles are currently linked to a distinct server owned and/or controlled by" American Lease."

    Sounds like an excuse, more so if they didn't disclose what the 'technical matter' is.

  • by PreInternet01 on 10/9/24, 5:38 PM

    Sure... "bankrupt-adjacent company with vaguely hard-coded cloud dependencies inconveniences their customers" is a story we've seen many times in the past already, and will continue to see uncountable times in the future, mostly because most people reading stories like these are employed by startups doing the exact same thing.

    So, the issue becomes "how to fix this"? This very same site tells me that EU-style hardcore regulation "makes it impossible to run a business", so, I'm open to suggestions, other than "Open Source Everything and Rewrite it in Rust"?

  • by tahoeskibum on 10/9/24, 4:18 PM

    I don't fully understand: does it mean that the cars are bricked and cannot be driven or simply that some cloud features e.g. driver customizations or real time traffic data is no longer available?

  • by 1970-01-01 on 10/9/24, 2:57 PM

    Interesting, but not surprising. When a tech-heavy company goes under, don't expect the simplest of issues to be resolved.

  • by stirlo on 10/9/24, 2:52 PM

    Seems shocking that for $46.3 million they cannot find a way to enable this.

    My heart goes out to any Fisker owners who purchased one of these soon to be bricks at full sticker.

  • by idontwantthis on 10/9/24, 4:19 PM

    Does anyone know what the real life consequences are? Will the cars not even run or are we talking about just not getting updates anymore?

  • by more_corn on 10/9/24, 10:35 PM

    Surely the people here could solve the problem.

  • by micah94 on 10/9/24, 4:51 PM

    They hardcoded IP addresses, didn't they? /s