[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.
Thanks for the validation. The one sitting on the lot in my town has an MSRP of $48,000. If you take the $7,000 credit off, it becomes $41,000. I'll still take the $25,000 Jetta and my ROI will still be alot quicker that yours.
So yes, the ACTUAL minimum, real-life buy it price for a 2012 Volt is actually $39,995, not $39,145
BTW, This car is on the lot in Yonkers NY, right now!
....and FYI, I purchased a 2102 Volt four weeks ago in the SF Bay area, fully loaded for not much more than the lowest "total vehicle price" in the US right now..
Fisker Automotive has drawn $193 million from a government loan. You dont even know what you're talking about. Also, bricked is a pejorative term with several meanings. Are you pissed because someone is serving the $100k sedan market? Guys, go back to your Occupy post & leave the reporting to the pros. Laters.
I understand your idea, (I will mention for others who donot know) where overhauling load causes motor to turn into a generator, thus ramping up the DC buss in the AC variable frequency drive.
Difference is that vehicles need to be able to coast, able to take your foot of the gas pedal and let engine braking help to slow you down. If an automatic, cannot place into park until vehicle comes to a stop, as tranny will not let the fork come into play until that point. Been that way for over 40 yrs. If standard, then engine braking is common occurance, as is seen when downshifting when coming to a stop.
With EV's, they do use the regenerative energy (often referred to as energy used during braking) to recharge the batteries.
This being said, best guess is something went wrong with the transistor module responsible for regeneration, and did just as you said, it loaded up the DC buss and tripped out the electronics. One would think there would have been incorporated a simple way to reset. Or did they never plan on that happening?
Another issue that has been mentioned in other forums is the inability to jump start a new vehicle without damaging it's electronics. If this car has these problems now, what will happen when it needs to be jump started?
Either way, at this point I don't think the majority of us will have to worry about this issue, as these models are slightly out of our budget range.....
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