Yesterday I wrote about how those cute little “green” cars aren't so green after all. In passing it noted that Leonardo DiCaprio drives a Fisker Karma, priced at more than $100,000. Today I noted something from USAToday that Consumer Reports had a little trouble with their Fisker Karma while testing it. It broke and they couldn't fix it. It had to be towed.
Naturally curious, I followed several links only to discover that Fisker is another failed green attempt by the government to promote its green agenda with taxpayers' money.
First, though, here's this from Consumer Reports:
Our Fisker Karma cost us $107,850. It is super sleek, high-tech—and now it's broken.
We have owned our car for just a few days; it has less than 200 miles on its odometer. While doing speedometer calibration runs on our test track (a procedure we do for every test car before putting it in service by driving the car at a constant 65 mph between two measured points), the dashboard flashed a message and sounded a “bing” showing a major fault. Our technician got the car off the track and put it into Park to go through the owner's manual to interpret the warning. At that point, the transmission went into Neutral and wouldn't engage any gear through its electronic shifter except Park and Neutral.
We let the car sit for about an hour and restarted it. We could now engage Drive and the same error message disappeared. After moving it only a few feet the error message reappeared and when we tried to engage Reverse the transmission went straight to Park and again no motion gear could be engaged. After calling the dealer, which is about 100 miles away, they promptly sent a flatbed tow truck to haul away the disabled Fisker.
We buy about 80 cars a year and this is the first time in memory that we have had a car that is undriveable before it has finished our check-in process.
Naturally the company was appalled. This had never happened before. And to have it happen while Consumer Reports was testing it! Fisker tried this spin:
Yesterday a Fisker owner, Consumer Reports, experienced a service event with the Karma they recently purchased from a local retailer.
As a new company introducing a new technology into the marketplace, customer satisfaction and a quick and thorough response to any issue is our primary focus.
As part of the Fisker VIP Customer Service program, the local Fisker retailer immediately arranged for the car to be picked up and diagnosed by trained service technicians.
Our engineers are in contact with the retailer and are working closely with them to understand the cause and resolve the issue so they can return the car to their customer quickly.
With about 2,000 Karmas built to date, 1,000 at retailers and 500 in customer hands, there are many satisfied Fisker owners around the world, driving without incident.
Except, of course, for those which have caught on fire while sitting in the owner's garage, catching the house on fire. It happened in Mary 2012 in Texas and it not only caught the house in fire but two other cars in the garage. Fisker said there was “uncertainty” about the cause of the fire, but it certainly didn't have anything to do with the battery. Another one caught fire in August last year in Woodside, California.
The federal government is funding this disaster. I'm sorry. You and I are funding this disaster. According to Wikipedia,
In 2010, the department of energy awarded Fisker a $529 million green-energy loan, primarily to assist the company in transitioning the Karma, which is assembled in Finland, into the American markets. Fisker collected nearly $200 million until February this year, when the government froze the loan because the company was failing to meet the government's milestones.
I hope that DiCaprio is enjoying his ride. I wonder what he drives when his Fisker Karma is in the shop?
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