Jan

Detroit: Best in Show - the $80K Fisker Plug-In Hybrid

Posted by admin Published in Auto Shows

Hot damn! We’re pretty certain the Fisker Coachworks Karma will do for the plug-in electric vehicle what the Tesla Roadster has done for the electric car - raise the bar of what is possible with green technology while making it sexy.

The $80,000 Karma is a marvel of design and engineering that melds classic styling cues with liminal technology. The company claims that the car’s lithium-ion batteries will supply 50 miles of emissions-free full-electric driving, and the Q-Drive hybrid drivetrain—a small four-cylinder engine attached to a very large generator—will purportedly propels the Karma from zero to 60 in 5.8 seconds and to a top speed of 125 mph. OK, so you won’t be outrunning Johnny Law, but you’d be able to dust a Prius.

“that car,” company CEO and lead designer Henrik Fisker told us, “is more enviromentally friendly than a Toyota Prius.”

And it’s, you know, smokin’ hot. Which is the point. Fisker, who designed the BMW Z8 and Aston Martin DB9, said the fastest way to bring green technology

into the mainstream is to manufacture it desirable.

“society see going green as a compromise, a sacrifice,” Fisker said.
“that is an environmentally friendly car without sacrifices, without
compromise. humans see green as boring. We have to invent green sexy.”
High five.

That’s the same view that drove the design of the Tesla, and perhaps
its no surprise that the two most cutting-edge green cars both have
their roots in Silicon Valley. Fisker has gotten big backing from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers - which includes such notable partners as enviro-darling Al Gore.

Fisker wouldn’t give us any details on the engine or electric motor
under the hood, saying only that it’s “a small fuel efficient American
engine.” The company plans to start producing 15,000 cars a year by the
end of 2009, and Fisker tells us the first several hundred cars already
are spoken for.