Saw my first two Karma's in the past week. The grille looks better in person. One drove by me this morning and it really looked impressive. The back looks nice and it has the amber turn signals. It is not a BEV and is out of my price range. Hoping they resolve all the issues. It would be great to see more on the road.
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Fisker Karma
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smorgasbord
Active Member
21 MPG in Sport Mode
Here's a Karma owner who has done 1700 miles, 88% of which were in Sport mode. He got 21 MPG. He says he never put the car in Stealth Mode.
I wonder if he ever plugged the car in, and if so, what that makes his overall MPGe. Seems like a lot of money & gas for some style.
Here's a Karma owner who has done 1700 miles, 88% of which were in Sport mode. He got 21 MPG. He says he never put the car in Stealth Mode.
I wonder if he ever plugged the car in, and if so, what that makes his overall MPGe. Seems like a lot of money & gas for some style.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
I think the Karma's basically just a pet project for Fisker and the hybrid/REEV part was just added so they can get DOE loans and perhaps a bit of goodwill from the green crowd. It has kind of backfired on them because of the politics. Right now the Karma is riding almost solely on looks; if it weren't for the looks it would probably have close to no customers. I just hope all the negative things that are happening to the Karma don't bleed over to other plug-ins.
spatterso911
P100DL - Raven
I've been fairly vocal with my disappointment in the Karma, however, I must say that if you have a relatively short commute, and you are liberal with charging the car at night, you can avoid the gas station for weeks to months at a time. There are plenty of Karma owners who would attest to this. My biggest disappointment is that Form trumped Function in nearly every category and many owners are having a horrid time with that bad decision making. It now appears that the company chooses to draw a line in the sand between it's product and it's heavily invested consumer. Really sad to see, even if Karma and Atlantic survive and continue to sell, it really sets the tone.
That was me. The reason is I live in NYC and I keep my car at my LA house that I'm in about two weekends or so per month. Since I travel a lot, I don't usually plug in my car when I'm away. Thus, having the ability to use gas is great. I am one of those range anxiety sufferers and have experienced it firsthand many times. In most respects, my Karma is great. It obviously has some shortcomings, none of which appear to be fatal at this point.
Thanks for posting SoCalGuy. I'm sure you'll get lots of questions on how you chose the Karma and your charging/driving patterns etc.
For the rest of us, let's keep our questions cordial and any commentary or criticisms focused on the car and company, not owners.
Unless it's Bieber :biggrin:
I'll start:
- Why do you choose to keep the Karma unplugged while you're away? Fisker recommendation or your choice? Most plug-in manufacturers recommend leaving the vehicle plugged in 24x7 when not in use AFAIK.
- Why do you leave the car in Sport mode almost all the time? Is this for the performance benefits?
- Your comment on range anxiety -- is this something you think you would have in an EV-only car (have you driven other pure EVs?), or is it something that you still have with the EV portion of the Karma?
(note: posts that were discussing the political climate of EVs in general were moved to the Cars, Candidates, Loans, and Bailouts thread.)
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1. I don't leave it plugged in for the same reason why I don't leave some other appliances plugged in - I usually shut off/unplug everything except my DVR and refrigerator. My TV, computers, stereo, etc. are all unplugged when I leave. Maybe I'm old fashioned (at age 29), but I always worry about a power outage damaging equipment or maybe causing a fire.
2. I leave the car in Sport mostly because when I'm in LA, I'm usually traveling around visiting friends and family most of the time and don't have time to fully charge (it takes 14 hours or so on the 110. but I'm getting the fast charger installed soon). My typical schedule is land around 945pm Friday night, pickup car, have dinner... and am out most of saturday/sunday so the car is never sitting at my house long enough to fully charge.
3. The range anxiety thing - I've experienced it several times with my Karma. There have been a few times when I've charged it up to about 30-35 miles of the 50, and used it around town and then decide to travel down to San Diego to visit friends at the last minute. Given how long it takes to charge, that trip(s) wouldn't have been possible unless I had pre-planned to drive the 150 miles or so down to San Diego. I want my car to conform to my lifestyle, not the other way around.
Also, a few other comments:
- I generally have a pretty heavy right foot and I live in a very hilly area, so my 20-22MPG doesn't seem nearly as bad as it sounds at first blush. I haven't yet tried to baby the car on a flat freeway stretch to see if I can get to 25+MPG. My comment on FiskerBuzz really related to the disconnect between my observed/calculated MPG vs. what was displayed on the Command Center's computer.
- I am a huge fan of the tech underlying the Model S - the drivetrain is super elegant, the packaging of the motor/inverter is amazing and the integration of the systems from the powertrain to the infotainment unit is superb - however, I think the exterior design gets me as excited as a Mazda 6 and the range and charge times are a showstopper for me. Re:the exterior design, It looked much sportier as a concept - like a nice Jag, but the Beta/pre-production cars I've seen, sat in and touched are really uninspiring - to each their own I suppose. Ultimately, I do think pure EVs are the way to go, but to get there, we need much faster charging and larger (and lighter) batteries. So for the time being, I think the series hybrids or as Fisker calls it the 'EVer' are the intermediate bridge to get us to pure EVs. What I'd like to see are much more efficient purpose-built range extenders, designed expressly for the purpose of generating electricity. I've seen several small private startups with cool designs for gas extenders with much smaller packaging and higher efficiency than re-purposed GM engines. Their problem is one of reliability and availability - GM/BMW/Audi have their 4cyls ready off the line, while most of these microcylinder or three-cylinder designs are just in prototype stage. They have the advantage of being more efficient, smaller, lighter and quieter than their stock brethren.
I guess I don't understand. Presumably one of the main reasons to get the Karma, besides the car's looks, would be the plug-in capability of the car but I could be wrong. Do you plug it in when you get to LA or do you always drive with the gas engine engaged (sport mode)?
Why would you suffer range anxiety in the Karma as the gas engine kicks in as you stated?
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Probably generator anxiety would be the appropriate term. Even Prius owners get that when the ICE turns on. You can't really test range anxiety with even an EREV since it usually has much less electric range (half or less) than a BEV in the same price range (and don't even think about quick charging). In that regard, the EREV is an imperfect stepping stone.
I test drove one at EVS 26, and I can tell you that it's a lot slower in Stealth mode. It needs the extra power from the engine to get decent acceleration.
I disagree. Acceleration in Stealth feels a little slower to 60, but equally zippy as Sport in the 0-40 sprint. You notice the biggest difference on the freeway while passing. Going from 65-85mph in Stealth is more noticeably slower
than in Sport, but still not a huge difference.
Well, I didn't take it onto the freeway and the difference in acceleration was not subtle.
I do use it when driving in town. If I have 10-15 miles of range left, I usually pop into Stealth when I'm driving in residential neighborhoods rather than on main thoroughfares. The Karma, as it currently is, will be a car I keep forever. Its stunning - by far the best looking car currently for sale, hybrid or non. And I think it can only get better over time, as battery tech improves, in a few years one could swap out the 20KWh A123 tunnel for maybe a 40KWh one and instantly get double the range. Many of the components are computer controlled (39 or so different ECUs) so can be tweaked and modified with new software releases. Ditto with the infotainment Command Center. From 6.12 to now (6.15), Fisker has improved the ICE functionality so its less intrusive and less noisy. All via software (it now borrows energy from the battery for certain acceleration scenarios, it revs lower and longer to payback borrowed battery power rather than short bursts of less efficient high rev/high power like it used to, etc). Bottom line: if the Karma didn't look as good as it does, I wouldn't have bought it. I wouldn't have bought a Model S either. I would have just kept my 7 year old BMW 5-series, since I only need a car a few days per month. I love the looks of the Karma - its a forEVer car =) and the hybrid tech is the best blend right now of fuel efficiency (and zero emissions for most people's daily commute) while giving you the freedom that is part of the defining character of the American car experience.
I'm rooting for not only Fisker and the Karma, but also Tesla and the Model S - I think the tech is awesome and Tesla is the dot-com startup analog of the car industry - far more Apple than GM. And that is what will make Tesla successful. The one hurdle that Tesla and other EVs will face at the moment is range anxiety. For second-car buyers, that won't be an issue since they'll have their Q5 or RX in the driveway for longer trips and vacations. For those that are looking to buy and own just one car, it will be a hurdle for sure. I long for the day when we have 1,000mile plus BEVs with rapid charging. That will require advances in battery storage tech (Li-Air maybe) but also material science tech so we can have lighter, cheaper cars that get more miles per KWh (its silly that we lug around 4,000-5,000lbs of stuff to move 200-800lbs of people mass!)
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The EPA rates the EV range of the Karma at 32 miles, so if you're getting 35-40 miles you're doing pretty well. Of course, it kind of hurts that a Volt/Ampera will do the same thing at a fraction of the price!
Highly unlikely - batteries simply don't evolve that fast - around 7-8% / year.
How many Karmas have been delivered? Last I heard was 900.
Nissan and GM got a lot of flack for coming slightly short of their 2011 predictions. And even though Nissan had the Tsunami supplier issues and GM trying to get ahead of constant bashing and lies they still got hammered for only hitting close to the numbers.
Has Fisker delivered all the presales? Something like 2 to 5 thousand?
Nissan and GM got a lot of flack for coming slightly short of their 2011 predictions. And even though Nissan had the Tsunami supplier issues and GM trying to get ahead of constant bashing and lies they still got hammered for only hitting close to the numbers.
Has Fisker delivered all the presales? Something like 2 to 5 thousand?
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Back in March they said they delivered 500 and produced 2000. So I assume they will reach 2000 delivered pretty soon.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...law-that-led-to-consumer-reports-failure.html
Their official target right now is 10k per year worldwide:
http://green.autoblog.com/2012/02/0...2-sales-estimate-to-10-000-units-expands-ava/
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