#Dave mazaika construction generator
As in the Chevrolet Volt, a small gas engine acts as a generator to give the car virtually unlimited electric range. They were expecting the car at Valmet, and it will run down the same very clean assembly line that I saw (very quietly) hand-building Porsche Boxsters and Caymans.Īt the heart of the Karma is Quantum's Q Drive, first developed for possible military applications. Last month, I visited its Valmet production facility in Finland - which also produces Porsches and the Think City EV. Fisker has said it wants to be producing 15,000 cars annually by 2011. Some 1,600 people have put down $5,000 deposits (including Al Gore), and none of them have driven the car, either. But perhaps just the sight of the Karma is enough to loosen purse strings. I'm not an investor in Fisker, but if I were so inclined, before I put money down I'd want to drive the car. It says the company "expects to create up to 5,000 direct and indirect U.S. It's quite likely that the car still needs finishing work.įisker is planning a second model, the more affordable Nina, which it will build in the former GM assembly plant in Delaware it bought for that purpose. But that means Fisker has had only a few months to integrate a new battery pack into its sophisticated architecture. Fisker is still talking to the DOE about that, Datz said.įisker switched battery suppliers from EnerDel to A123 in January, and that $23 million investment undoubtedly was a factor. That presumably gets Fisker close to meeting the matching provisions of its provisional $528.7 million Department of Energy loan. The company said early this year that it raised $115.3 million in equity funding (including $23 million from its battery supplier, Boston-based A123 Systems). Henrik Fisker has demonstrated prodigious skill as a fundraiser. "We haven't seen any show-stoppers," says David Mazaika, Quantum's chief operating officer.
The company's powertrain manufacturer, Quantum Technologies, also says the car is on track for launch. "We want the first drive to be in the finished car." "It is very important that our first driving impression is a home run," he said. He, for one, has driven the Karma, and he describes it as "impressive." And he says that Fisker is carefully planning its press introduction for sometime around the end of the year. The company has no obligation to hand the keys to journalists, obviously, but its reticence has reinforced the impression that the car may not yet be ready for the road (and thus not likely to get to customers on time).ĭatz denies that. Will Henrik Fisker tempt buyers into the electric age, or is he already a relic of the past?įisker has certainly shown off the car and its sleek Ferrari-like lines, but as a static display, not a driving car. The only problem is that nobody outside the company has driven one yet. Greener than a Prius and hotter than a Maserati, the Fisker Karma promises to change the way the world thinks about electric cars.
Popular Science surveys the " future of the car" in its May issue, and concludes: But Henrik Fisker is far more accessible than the car itself. Two of his cars, the BMW Z8 and the Aston DB9, were featured in James Bond movies. The company's CEO, Danish-born Henrik Fisker, is not only the car's designer (after a rapid rise at BMW, Aston Martin and other high-profile brands) but also the company's CEO, a snappy dresser with an internationalist flair and a raconteur's gifts. It's spectacularly sexy, and it has a great back story. In many ways, the Karma (like the Tesla Roadster) is a journalist's dream. "A lot of our depositors have never seen the car in the flesh." The immobile car they'll be reaching out to touch is the same one recently seen on the show car circuit. "It's a chance to touch and feel the car," he said. Will the car's prospective dealers finally get a chance to drive the car? No, says spokesman Russell Datz. The lack of access is interesting in light of Fisker's intention, announced Thursday, to take the Karma on a national "retail tour" beginning April 27. But I have to say "alleged" because, as close as the Karma is to launch, very few people have driven it. The plug-in hybrid car, with alleged zero to 60 time of six seconds and a top speed of 125 mph, is scheduled to hit showrooms by the end of the year and to reach its first customers in the first quarter of 2011. The Fisker Karma, so near and yet so far.
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