Curvy as a chanteuse and as bright-eyed as a Hollywood musical, the Fisker Karma is a blue-sky vision of a green future, a 5,600-pound sedan born from the unlikely marriage of low-slung looks and guilt-free consumption.
But in the four years since it debuted as a concept car in 2008, the Fisker Karma has also grown to represent what can go south in this modern era of high-stakes automotive startups. Oft-delayed and priced at $102,000, 20 percent more expensive than originally anticipated, the Karma was recently slapped with lower-than-expected fuel-efficiency numbers by the EPA, triggering the withdrawal of $529 million in funding from the Department of Energy.
“We are not dependent on the Department of Energy…. We are here to [launch and] make money on the Karma,” designer and company founder Henrik Fisker told journalists at the car’s press intro in Beverly Hills, California. “The reality is we’re selling cars every day, we’re self-sufficient, and we don’t really need that money,” he added.
Political and financial hijinks aside, the Fisker Karma proved itself an alluring creature during a two-hour drive up the coast and across the looping canyon roads of Malibu.
