Ok, I'm not the world's greatest writer, but I'll try to get my thoughts and impressions out the best I can.
Performance/Drivetrain:
I'll start with what triggered this all in the first place: the drivetrain. I have to say, my initial impressions remain on the performance end: the Karma is sluggish. I think there's maybe a few things at play there. First, there's a disconnect from when you hit the accelerator and when the car actually "moves". It's slight, but noticeable and an odd sensation. The pedal just feels numb.
Next, I think Fisker designed the car to be a luxury cruiser, so instead of throwing you back with the acceleration, the car sort of gradually coaxes you into it. The best comparison I can think of would be if you had something precariously balanced in your passenger seat so you try to accelerate as smoothly as possible to disturb said item as little as possible. Lastly, I think there's a combination of the car's weight and the software tuning that just cripples things a bit.
I should first point out that we made the trip to the dealer in our R8 so I may have been a bit colored by the sharp contrast, but when we got home, I hopped in my wife's A6 and it definitely feels quicker than the Karma (it may or may not be, I didn't look up the numbers, but specs only tell half the story, the "feeling" I got was that the A6 was much quicker). Also, a guy took the same car out after we did, and when he got back we were checking out some of the Karmas they had prepped for delivery and he had the same feedback when I asked him how his ride went.
On to the drivetrain, I also still feel the same about the overall package, and something the salesman said to me sort of reinforces it. He said something along the lines of "Fisker saw that the military had already spent 'billions' with Quantum to develop this technology and he said 'well, I've got this great design and a great interior, all I need is that powering it" -- so basically, if true, the car was designed just how it feels: a powertrain was stuffed into a pretty design that Henrik made. This is a shame, because I think that ends up being the biggest negative to me overall. More on this later, but I think that decision led to some of the things I liked least about the car: the lack of lateral interior room due to the battery tunnel riding so high, poor acceleration and a lack of trunk space.
On the driving characteristics, I felt it handled a bit "heavily" and I suspect it may be the wheels. It definitely wasn't BAD, but it was awkward. I felt like I got some of the road feedback of the R8 or any sports car, but with a soft suspension for handling turns and such -- sort of the worst of both worlds. I'm fine with a stiff suspension if it means I can carve into turns. I honestly felt a little scared on turns (we hit some nice windy back-roads), though it could have just been that I was so new to the car. I almost felt like there was no power steering, so it was harder to turn the car, but then there was no stiff suspension to help out with it all. Again, just a bit awkward.
The tron sound wasn't annoying to me, though my wife found it to be so (she was in the back and said it was louder). Interestingly, it stayed on at highway speeds. I thought it would turn off after a certain speed threshold, but the salesman said it actually increased in volume as the speed changed. Odd, but again, it didn't bother me. When standing outside the car, it sounded like the tron sound came from the back, but in the hood area I heard a sort of electric whining sound. I didn't hear it after the test drive, so it may have just been a fan or something running.
The engine noise didn't bother me either, it was near silent most of the time, and only twice did I notice it: once when I was trying to accelerate and the car seemed like it was confused what it should do, so the engine revved rather harshly. The other was when we were coming to a stop and I had it in Hill 2 (stronger regen), I heard a hard THUNK that the salesman said was the engine. He said Henrik designed this car because he saw Leo pull up to some awards in a Prius and thought: why can't there be eco-responsibly luxury. A luxurious prius -- a great notion, but these sounds were not luxury in the least -- nor was that unruly engine bay:
One thing I found a bit weird was that you don't get a digital numeric display of your current speed unless you are in sport mode. If you're in stealth, you just get the digital speedo (gauge) and something else is in the place where the numbers would otherwise reside. Something that can be changed with software I'm sure. One thing I liked was that the Hill modes were set by pulling a paddle behind the steering wheel on the right side (sort of like where paddle shifters are in DSG cars). The sport paddle was on the left. These can be mix and matched. i.e. you can be in either sport or stealth and have almost no regen, mild regen (Hill 1) or harder regen (Hill 2). I like that control. I did wish Hill 2 was stronger though it wasn't bad. It felt about as strong as dropping into 5th gear while coasting at highway speeds -- a slight tug, but not too harsh. I felt like that should be Hill 1 and Hill 2 should be like dropping into 4th... slight head bobbing action
The Car
So with the powertrain and driving characteristics out of the way, moving on to the car. The looks are still somewhat polarizing. As I said up-thread, I thought it was great in pictures and always thought it looked odd IRL, but when we pulled up they had a black one and that one, I really liked, while my wife (who normally LOVES it in pics) was very turned off. For me, the black car hid the weird long hood, while for her it accentuated it. By the end of our time at the dealer though, I was back to thinking it was meh in person and her, finding a white one she tried to convince me to trade the R8 in for, loved it in person. Go figure.
The car we drove was a Shadow with Canyon Tri-tone interior. I liked the exterior paint: the metallic flecks were amazing. I'm close to hating the interior. My wife thought the outside was "meh" and LOVED the interior. Almost every interior surface is wrapped in a nice supple leather which seemed far richer than anything on any of our Audis. I thought it was VERY well done, but I just wasn't feeling the colors, or the odd eyebrow dash. The steering wheel is also very odd and uncomfortable to me.
That battery tunnel running through the middle of the car is such a buzzkill. Those who've met me know I'm a big guy. I'm 6'3" my wife is 6'2". I'm of course wider than she is :redface: -- but we BOTH were very uncomfortable. She sat in the back, and big baby bump aside, she had pretty much zero leg room. She also had a hard time putting on her seatbelt -- not because of the belly, but because that damn battery tunnel. The seat belt thingy was wedged down on the side and with the door closed she had pretty much no room to move to get to it. She had to open the door, scoot out a bit, buckle, then close the door. Those who have met my wife and seen how thin she is will recognize that's a problem. For kids, it shouldn't be a huge issue though, and one reason she was urging me to trade the R8 in is because the Karma at least has a back seat (for a car seat), and unlike her now-departed S5, it also has back doors to easily access those seats. You just probably wouldn't want to put anyone above 16 whom you actually care about back there.
I had a similar time up front. I eventually took my jacket off to get some more lateral space, but it still felt squished. The high-riding tunnel just makes you feel claustrophobic, but on the bright side, it was the perfect height for an armrest
I didn't play with the command center much, but from what I did get to use of it, it's an attractive interface, but it's very unintuitive and still horribly slow. Button presses take a while to register, though you DO get haptic feedback which is great. Toward the end of the drive when the salesman wanted to show us the audio system, he turned it on and it was blaring loud. He couldn't get it to go down quickly because the volume button was literally tap -- wait -- tap -- wait. I eventually used the steering wheel controls to nip it in the bud -- they were very responsive. The command center was version 6.14.2 according to the dealer, which seems to be the latest according to posts on FB.
Tesla can learn a thing or two from the crisp graphics in the system and haptic feedback. They can also learn a thing or two by making sure their interface is significantly faster at launch than we've seen in beta vehicles.
Again going back to the powertrain packaging; the trunk space is very small. Probably greater in volume to the frunk in the R8, but not by a whole lot. Apparently the rear motors eat up the height of the trunk, and the batteries the depth. I realize the Karma is low-slung, but it would have been cool to seen them do some unique packaging -- instead the car feels like a conversion with impaired interior and trunk space.
Some other little tidbits: the manager at the dealer told my wife (she was saying she was tempted to buy) that one downside for women is that the car can't go through carwashes because it has water-based paint (for eco cred I guess). He said you'd be best off just using something similar to dish soap on it. I don't know if that's true, but that would royally suck if so. Also, there are no latches to open the doors from the inside, there are buttons that sort of look like power window or lock buttons (those buttons are actually on the battery tunnel in the center). Aside from it being sort of weird pressing down on a button to push open the door, they're in the same place, so it's actually sort of worrying that you might press them while in motion. We didn't think to ask if that's possible though because we thought up the scenario on the way home, but I'd imagine Fisker would have safeguards against that.
Here are some shots of the white one she fell in love with. It's called white sand:
Here's the solar panel roof (salesman was very honest that it mainly powered HVAC and such and didn't really charge the car):
Chargeport:
Fisker partnered with Lear to bring a charger to market. I didn't get pics, but it's not very attractive. Though it's about $2,400 installed which includes them working with any permits or local crap you may have to deal with. Also cool? For the 50,000 mile warranty on the car, maintenance is not only free (except brakes and tires), but Fisker will actually pick up and deliver the car back to you. It was about 1.2 hours to the dealer through some horribly congested roads, so that was a big plus in our book. The battery has an 8 year 80k mile warranty if my memory serves correctly.
Here are some shots of the Shadow karma we took out next to (eclipsing) the R8 (both were dirty and I'm a horrible photog, sorry):
That's all I can remember off the top of my head (probably should've taken notes on all we discussed on the laborious drive home). This "review" might come across as negative, but in all honesty, I came back with a bit more of an appreciation for the car than I set out with. My feelings about the powertrain are largely unchanged (and in fact, probably worse), but honestly, I felt myself actually annoyed that I DIDN'T like the powertrain because I think I could get to love the car. I certainly wouldn't have minded it being in my wife's garage spot, but at the end of the day, the powertrain part just felt rushed and thrown together, and coming from an S5 and a slower, but still more spritely-than-the-karma A6, not even she could get over the sluggishness.
Maybe in time, but not now. We will keep our eye out for the Nina or perhaps Karma 2.0 with some improvements to the packaging, but for now, it just feels a bit too sloppy in that area -- especially for a 107k car. At 60, maybe even 70k we probably would have caved a bit more, but right now, it's not worth it.
My 2¢
