Karma: This $107,850 plug-in hybrid Fisker Karma had to be towed back to the dealership after a test driver couldn’t start it following a brief drive on a test track (YouTube / Consumer Reports)
Posted on 03/11/2012 4:13:44 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
The Fisker Karma is a plug-in hybrid car that seems to have everything the rich and famous — and environmentally correct — look for in a set of wheels. Sleek silhouette? Check. Green cred? Check. Six-figure price tag? Check.
Reliable battery? Not so fast.
In a test conducted Wednesday by Consumer Reports magazine, the niche-market $107,850 sports car conked out completely, after a short ride at 65 miles per hour on a Connecticut test track.
“Our Fisker Karma … is super sleek, high-tech — and now it’s broken,” Consumer Reports wrote on its website late Thursday.
“We have owned our car for just a few days; it has less than 200 miles on its odometer … We buy about 80 cars a year and this is the first time in memory that we have had a car that is undriveable before it has finished our check-in process.”
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
Karma: This $107,850 plug-in hybrid Fisker Karma had to be towed back to the dealership after a test driver couldn’t start it following a brief drive on a test track (YouTube / Consumer Reports)
It’s like tossing money into a bonfire.
Until they work out the battery problem, these things are just not going to work.
Its like my battery powered drill at home.
It’s great not to have to lug around a cord, but every time I go to use it the battery needs charging , it gets me half way through a job and it quits and the battery stops taking a charge after a year. The drill is like new and I have to buy a new battery which costs as much as a new drill.
I have bought about 5 of the things and tossed them in the trash when the battery dies.
Bad Karma, bad. Poetic, isn’t it?
The only reason the rich and famous have them is that they were given to them for free.
Sometimes literally.
When you think about it, they're lucky. It could have burst into flames.
The sad thing about these electric vehicles is that the nobama nincompoops are shoiveling tax-payer money into these things so as to make their friends richer. All of these criminals should be in jail and waterboarded to find out why they are so ignorant.
But, but, but ... its the thought that counts, plus all of our watermelon friends get a piece of the action.
Well, at 108k...They will now include a flatbed hauler for 15k more. “Your welcome auto buyer”.
It’s all so unnecessary. If karma is real then it’s only fitting that it fails. What’s not fitting is that people involved in the scam are getting rich.
That was the cheesy name they gave one of the cars on the equally cheesy "Fast and Furious" part of the Universal Studios Hollywood Tour.
If an Electric Car's battery goes dead can you jump start it from another Electric Car?I ask because I've never seen this mentioned or addressed.
Or, can it be jump started at all?
And, we just had to call AAA on Monday to get our daughter's car started. She needed a new battery which they brought with them and put in faster than the speed of light or ----- faster than a Fisker Karma on a test drive :-)
AAA and all auto clubs will be doing a lot of towing the more of these Clown Cars hit the road. Not to mention Ambulances when these things get crushed like a soda can from what was an old 'fender bender'. (And if it's hit by a Semi all they'll need are shovels.)
“If an Electric Car’s battery goes dead can you jump start it from another Electric Car?”
Not in the sense that a gasoline engine can be jumped. The jump only provides enought energy to get the gasoline engine started. Once it’s started, it runs on gasoline.
An electric car runs on the energy stored in it’s on board battery. The reason it won’t start is the battery is completely discharged, ie, no energy.
I guess you could look at the charging station as some sort of a jump start but you’ve got to remained hooked to the station for a long enough time to recharge the battery.
“Bad Karma, bad. Poetic, isn’t it?”
My thinking is when they named this car, they were all on “shrooms”. n/s
I still haven't heard what happens to the junk batteries from these rolling piles of junk.
Anyone?
It’s a beautiful car, as well it should be at that price. I won’t celebrate a test failure, will note that CR isn’t the most pro-car publication in the world and is in fact rather dour, and that there is nothing controversial at all about a hybrid gas-electric system. They’ve worked well for going on a decade and do deliver on the promise of improved fuel economy.
I hope Fisker recovers from this and goes on to a grand, successful future.
Their dogma ran over their Karma.
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