Shocking. Another electric car recall.

While I am not in favor of government guaranteed loans to these so-called green companies, a few points need to be clarified:

1) Fisker Automotive was founded by Henrik Fisker, a former BMW designer who designed the BMW Z8, Aston Martin V8 Vantage and Aston Martin DB9. There is a long tradition of naming car companies after a founder, e.g., Ford, Buick, Bugatti, Ferrari, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Duesenberg, etc.

2) The Karma is a plug-in, gas/electric hybrid, and not a pure-electric car. IMO, it’s good-looking, but expensive, too heavy (2 1/2 tons,) and because of its small interior, considered a subcompact. Despite the fact that it’s several times more expensive than the Chevy Volt, rich “greenies” will buy it based on the tech and the looks.

Finally, I don’t consider improperly installed hose clamps as a reason to damn the car, because other manufacturers deal with manufacturing issues like this all the time.

Reno_Dave on December 31, 2011 at 11:52 AM

Then go buy one and let us know how you like it.

Why would I want to buy one when I wrote that it was, “… expensive, too heavy (2 1/2 tons,) and because of its small interior, considered a subcompact”?

There may be a market for this car, just as there is for the Maybach, the Koenigsegg Agera and the various cars of the Morgan Motor Co..

But again there shouldn’t be government support for ventures like this, (IOW, let the market decide,) and manufacturing glitches — such as the possibility of wheels falling off your Ford Fusion are to be expected, though not desired.

Reno_Dave on December 31, 2011 at 12:22 PM

It might be more efficient to just skip the whole lossy process of creating, transmitting, and storing the potential, and just use the hydrocarbons directly to generate mechanical energy. For the moment.

There are many losses in a standard powertrain. IIRC, horsepower measured on a chassis dyno is 10% – 15% lower than the rated horsepower of the engine due to frictional losses in the transmission and final drive.

The hybrid benefits from recapturing kinetic energy using regenerative braking, which is one of the reasons why city mileage is usually better than highway mileage. Conventional brakes swap kinetic energy for heat, which is wasted in the process.

The gas engine in a plug-in hybrid like the Volt and Karma can be much smaller than the engine in a “normal” car, because it only has to be sized for average energy consumed, since the peaks caused by acceleration and ascending grades can be covered by the higher HP electric motors using battery charge. Also, the engine can be designed to run at it’s most efficient in a relatively limited RPM range.

Still, while I think that these cars are interesting from an engineering perspective, I’m still not sure they make sense from a cost and “overall” energy consumption standpoint, i.e., the energy required to manufacture, operate over the service life, and (eventually) to dispose or recycle the car and power systems.

FWIW, I drive a 2006 BMW 325Ci. It gets roughly 20MPG city, and 31MPG Hwy. I’d rather have it than a Karma or Prius.

Reno_Dave on December 31, 2011 at 1:13 PM