In spite of a particularly chaotic market for the technology, vehicle and battery sector even by the wild and ever-changing standards of global trading, electric cars are experiencing a surge in sales.

In Europe, new electric car registration surged by 23 per cent compared to the previous year, compared to a 3.2 per cent increase for the whole market and providing a lot of positive news despite the notable declines of brands such as Tesla, MG and Fiat.

These benefits help the entire supply chain, from the dealers at one end to the processors of electronic raw materials on the other, and showcase how a relatively new market has been learning and growing despite some rather notorious missteps.

Fisker Ocean

An electric car perhaps most notorious for being dumped on the side of a road in Nottingham according to an article by The Mirror, the Fisker Ocean story was a baffling case study in how not to release a modern electric car in the 2020s.

Following multiple failed attempts to revive the pioneering luxury electric car company Fisker, the Ocean was the first and ultimately the only car the revised Fisker company would produce before filing for bankruptcy in 2024 as reported by Auto Express.

Fisker, already struggling with cash flow in 2023, launched the car too early and with utterly disastrous consequences; there were, according to an investigation by TechCrunch, over 100 loss-of-power instances alone, along with other technical issues such as brake failures, windows automatically opening and other problems believed to be caused by the EV’s software.

Ultimately, the company went bankrupt entirely, and since it has no dealer network, that means no spare parts and no software updates, meaning that whatever glitches the software has will always be there.

The lesson is about the importance of reputation; a delayed car is only late until it finally launches, but a bad car is bad forever, with its reputation tainted long after any issues are fixed and prices often needing to fall a long way to find a buyer.

Renault Fluence Z.E.

In the early 2010s, when range anxiety was even more of a concern amongst a new generation of buyers than before, one potential alternative solution was battery charging as epitomised by the Renault Fluence Z.E.

Battery charging as a concept has existed in electric cars for over a century, with London Electrobus applying the concept to public transport as early as the 1900s and Lucas Industries developing an Electric Taxi concept using the same technology.

In theory, this allows electric cars to be sold for cheaper, negates the worries of range depreciation as they would be swapped via a leasing scheme, and could refresh the range of the car far more quickly than the early, slower charging stations commonly found in the early 2010s.

The problem was that it relied on a separate battery leasing and swapping company, Better Place, which filed for bankruptcy in 2013. The Fluence was converted into a more conventional EV and was remarkably successful in South Korea, but infamously sold just 79 units in the UK before it was discontinued.

Ultimately, whilst an innovative solution, it had the same infrastructure problems as EV charging stations at the time, without any real benefits.

Tesla Cybertruck

Part of the reason why Tesla’s sales plummeted so heavily and the company’s profits dropped 71 per cent according to TechCrunch is in part the result of the utter failure of its bizarre flagship Cybertruck.

The car has been recalled eight times in the United States, most recently in March 2025 due to a failing adhesive that caused parts of the stainless steel body to fall off whilst in motion, but the number of issues with the unusual pick-up truck is almost impossible to count.

The car was prone to rusting, sometimes would suddenly break down whilst in motion, was recalled due to a fault that made the pedal stick in place, a failing windscreen wiper motor, doors and bonnets that were sharp enough to cut like a guillotine and the car rather famously fails in the cold when other offroad EVs have made contingencies for this.

As well as this, the Cybertruck cannot be sold in most countries due to its weight, odd shape and lack of crumple zones making it a serious safety hazard. One Cybertruck imported into the UK was seized in Greater Manchester according to a report by the BBC.

These along with many other issues have done a lot of damage to the biggest EV company in the world, to the point that in Q1 2025, Volkswagen shipped more cars than it.

All of this highlights the importance of making a car that is designed for the roads it is intended to drive on and that an infamously troubled vehicle can affect the reputation of an entire company.