Fisker Karma

2009 Fisker Karma

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The 2011 Fisker Karma is a four-door luxury sports sedan from a brand-new company, Fisker Automotive. Henrik Fisker, a former designer for BMW and Aston Martin, founded the company in 2007. In addition to low-slung, slinky styling, its most distinctive feature is its plug-in series hybrid powertrain, similar to the arrangement being used on the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, another extended-range electric vehicle. First revealed at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show, the Karma is the company’s first offering, and will be assembled under contract in Finland. Fisker hopes to sell up to 15,000 Karma sedans and retractable-hardtop models a year. The company has already started to equip a factory in Delaware to produce its next model, likely in 2012 or 2013, a line of four-door sedans, coupes, and crossovers currently known as Project Nina.

Scheduled to begin deliveries in the early months of 2011, the Fisker Karma wins praise for its looks and technology. But as of Spring 2010, no automotive journalist has been in the car, so the car’s performance and characteristics remain a somewhat unknown quantity. It competes not only with similarly sized German prestige sedans like the BMW 5-Series and the Audi A6—and upcoming hybrid variants of some of those cars—but also with the Tesla Model S, if that all-electric sedan arrives in 2012 as planned. The Fisker Karma sedan is priced at $87,400, with buyers eligible for a $7,500 credit on their Federal income tax returns. A two-door model with a retractable hardtop, the Karma S, is planned as a 2012 model.

The 2011 Fisker Karma will use a 22-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack to power a pair of motors driving the rear wheels. It will have roughly 50 miles of all-electric range, after which a 2.0-liter direct-injected EcoTech four gasoline engine, sourced from General Motors, will kick in to power a generator that provides electric power to the motors for another 200 or more miles.

One of the options for the 2011 Fisker Karma will be an “Eco-Chic” interior, which uses no animal products and features wood reclaimed from forest-fire salvage logs, renewable resources like bamboo, and even logs that sank into rivers years ago. The optional leather seats uses a much higher amount of each hide—85 percent—than other makers, retaining marks and scars never found on other luxury cars. Fisker also plans to offer a roof fully covered with photovoltaic solar cells, providing enough power to cool the cabin while parked. On consistently sunny days, the Karma’s solar roof can theoretically add 3 to 5 miles of range to the car’s battery each week.