[Correction Appended.] High-flying luxury hybrid maker Fisker Automotive received a black eye last week when its new vehicle, the Fisker Karma, died in a parking lot during testing at the Consumer Reports automotive test facility in Connecticut. "This is the first time in decades where we had a car that was undriveable and immovable," David Champion, senior director of Consumer Reports' Auto Test Division, told Design News. "It was just stuck in the middle of our car park."
The incident, described in detail on a Consumer Reports blog, occurred moments after the magazine's engineers drove the vehicle onto a test track to do a speedometer calibration. One of Karma's dashboard warning lights turned on, causing the engineering team to drive it back to the auto test shed to check out the problem.
A 2012 Fisker Karma luxury electric car became bricked after being driven onto the track at Consumer Reports' automotive test facility in Connecticut.
"We put the car into park to look at the owner's manual, and then it wouldn't shift back into 'drive' or 'reverse,' " Champion told us. An explanation in the owner's manual indicated that the vehicle had experienced a "high-voltage problem." The manual advised the engineering team to contact the dealer. Consumer Reports had purchased the car at a Fisker dealership in Connecticut for $107,850 and had picked it up just four days earlier. A photo on the Website shows the Karma being hauled away on the back of a flatbed truck.
In a statement, Fisker described itself as a new company introducing a new technology into the marketplace. "With about 2,000 Karmas built to date, 1,000 at retailers and 500 in customer hands, there are many satisfied Fisker owners around the world, driving without incident," the statement said. Satisfied owners include Justin Bieber, Ashton Kutcher, and Leonardo DiCaprio.
"It's just really difficult for a startup company on its first car to get everything right. But this is a little bit beyond that."
Exactly Charles, new or startup companies are trying to competitive with the existing technology or global players. We have to motivate and encourage such startup companies in full heart and then only they can be more fruitful. For any startup company the best lesson is learning from others failures.
It seems this type of vehicle appeals only to people who have high incomes and lots of money to throw around. I doubt it would make any difference if the Fisker Karma cost $100K or $250K; they'd still buy one for the "cool aura" or "novelty" effect on others. There's no reason for the taxpayers to subsidize these buyers. If the Fisker Karma was a good idea, people already would have raised private capital and invested it in this company. They didn't, which should have given people in government the idea that a "loan" would not pay off. Why do we continue to elect people who pass legislation that allows for this type of subsidy? Time to clean out the Augean Stables, a.k.a. the Capitol and White House. Vote smart.
Sadly, this is big news, and factual rather than fanciful. If the review was great, the high visibility would have paid off for Fisker, unfortunately they had the biggest failure that Consumer Reports has ever encountered in an auto. If it was a Kia it would have been big news, but being a Karma the news is devastating. I honestly feel sorry for them and I hope they have a high visibility resolution.
You're exactly correct, Naperlou. The Karma has a 20-kWh battery, not a big one like the Tesla Model S. Theoretically, if we assume that the cost lies somewhere between $700/kWh and $1,000/kWh, the battery would run between $14,000 and $20,000.
You can call it sensational journalism if you like, Roy, but Fisker is using $529 million of taxpayer money to build this vehicle and then selling them for $100K a pop. Should Consumer Reports ignore it when the Karma becomes the first car in decades to die in the their lot? Should Design News ignore it when the car has to be towed away? I would think most potential buyers (not to mention taxpayers) would want to know this.
When we said "bricked" in the article headline, we were referring to the fact that the car was stopped dead. Consumer Reports described the vehicle as undriveable and immovable. There's no ambiguity there. The car was indeed bricked.
This reminds of the time the Microsoft Windows 98 crashed when Gates was debuting the system during the keynote talk at the 2005 Consumer Electronics Show. It's hard to explain it away as a rare glitch.
Although there are several issues at stake here the engineering aspect is clear. New and very complex technologies are going to have issues until the entire system is well exercised.
In software we have a saying that the end user is the final test load. The more end users one can get early on will improve the product development as long as it is acompanied by a dedicated and well funded engineering team. The company should fully stand behind their products, especially at the prices they charge. It might take a little while to iron out all the bugs and to actually make a profit but it will come with the right combinations of engineering fixes and better customer support.
A hybrid powertrain is much more complex than a EV only. EV only performance depends on the batteries and as we have already noted in these pages, the battery technology is developing rapidly. Effectively a 3 fold increase in battery capacity and lower costs would make the EV only pretty much unbeatable.
The downside is, gasoline is still relatively cheap and the infrastructure is well entrenched. I found a news article regarding a gasoline from coal plant in West Virginia. I have no idea how much gasoline from this process costs but eventually there will be some breakeven point compared to gas from oil. The US haas lots of coal.
I doubt if the battery here costs $40K to replace, like in the Tesla. The Tesla is an all-electric vehicle. This battery is smaller. On the other hand, if the electrical system completely froze up it may not be cheap. I think one of the problems with these vehicles is the battery technology that requires active measures to keep it running.
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