Karma

It has taken me exactly 19 weeks, but something finally clicked today: I think I like the Fisker Karma[see below, left]. When I woke up on Christmas morning, reached into my stocking and saw the Karma in a magazine article, I was not impressed. Electric car, fish-like features (reminds me of the derranged Mitsuoka Orochi: seen below, right), "American-made", and called a 'premium-performance' hybrid. It was impressive that the combination didn't make me tear out the article and throw it on the yule log, but I've started to come around.




I admit I am a little skeptical because of all the drama that has been happening with the Tesla Roadster (see below). Drama which, in fact, had decided to involve suing the makers of the Karma for stolen technology. The Tesla got high reviews and several prestigious awards in the category of being the Best Green Sports Car, but I for every award I felt less impressed, as there was no competition. Performance was good as well, with reviewers raving about its massive acceleration and top speed of 125mph, not to mention the absurd equivalent mileage (well over 100mpg). But I had also heard that with aggressive driving, the driving range drops laughably low, so it while it can have the performance of it's less green cousin, the Elise, it can't be the track toy it's built to compete against. So with the track option closed, it becomes a road car. But a road car with two seats and a pricetag over $100,000. So now it's a car that simply shows off your status as a rich, eco-concious car enthusiast who likes to . Not the most terrible thing for a car to be, but it's unfortunate to be limited to this, and I don't think that such a car should be considered an award-winner.



So the Karma. Back to that. An American car manufacturer that puts its cars together in Europe (just double-checked for exact location: Finland??) did cause me to raise an eyebrow, but not in intrest. Close comparisions to the Tesla's numbers didn't impress me- about 100mpg, top speed 125, 0-60 was 2.1sec slower than the Roadster, but ooh, what was this? an impressive $20K was cut off the price tag very neatly. I did like that. But the Karma was a very different animal, indeed, because it did not pretend to be a track car- 4 doors and all, this was a called a luxury sports sedan. Now the $80K price tag makes sense, but consider the comparison: the Karma fit roughly into the niche the Tesla market had controlled, but now some in-the-money leftys could save some money and bring their friends around on the town. Not too shabby for a sedan. I had never really understood the concept of a luxury sedan before, and I guess I still don't, but this car started to appeal to me.

But what really excites me about this car is the response it got from Tesla. 5 months after the Karma was revealed, Tesla announced their plans to make their own electric sports-sedan, and for only $50K this time! Fisker has actually started a ball rolling in the hybrid/electric/green/sport/luxury/coupe/sedan market, where the game had long been consiting of one player, scoring infrequently. While hybrids have been picking up speed (literally) in the average sedan market, I think this development will start to perk up the interest in the rest of the car enthusiast world.

Whew! Did I really write that much? I was hoping I could review the book I read today, but looks like it's pretty crowded already. Next time!