The guy behind the whole thing is called Henrik Fisker. He is from Denmark.
Earlier he design cars like the Aston Martin DB9 & V8 Vantage, and the BMW Z8. And that are some cars!
After that he spent some time on coachbuilding in the USA. At some point he saw Leonardo diCaprio driving a Prius.
Of course to show a green attitude. And Fisker said, he wouldn't have done that if he could drive something cool instead.
That is were it started, here we are today: a new brand called Fisker, with their first car: the Karma.
Charisma on a scale from one tot ten? Eleven!
This car is an EV & plug-in. A lot of batteries in the center console, nice and low, two elektric engines in the back...
... and a petrol engine in the front. And the exhaust are not those things at the back, but it is here in the front.
He was pretty early with his idea with that idea of a range extender, but it took longer dan planned to develop the car.
As a new brand, he had financial problems, technical problem etc etc. So the car was prosponed a couple of times.
So it was beaten by the Opel Ampera that got there first. It was launched just a little earlier.
The first to say, it that this car is not that fast. Or better: not as fast as it looks. It looks like a hypercar with 600+ PS.
But it is not that fast like that. It has two electric engines with 200 PS and 1.300 Nm Torque from 0 revs.
The car weighs 2.300 kg, that is a lot. that means 0-100 in about 6 seconds. A golf GTI-time. Not too slow, but not a supercar value.
There are 2 driving modes: stealth and sport. In stealth you drive one electricity only. With a paddle you change to sport.
Than the engine starts working and gives extra punch. Without it, you reach 100 kph in 8 seconds.
Another advantage of the sportsmode: the batteries don't deplete. You can save the power for later on.
So use petrol on the highway and electricity on the highway. On the batteries you reach between 60 en 80 km.
So pretty good for commuting. And with range exented for the other part: no problem.
That engine is the 2.0 turbo from GM, we know it from the Opel GT. It is loud, but not as bad as it was during my first drive in 2011.
So how does it drive? It weighs a lot, but the centre of gravity is low. Al that weight is low and between the wheels. Same for the engine.
So the balance is very nice. Not gentle, but dynamic non the less. Pretty impressive for a car with this mass.
It is low and tight, with stiff springs. I drives like a great sporty GT, it really does. It does very well on the dynamic part.
The fun part, the Dutch dealer Kroymans is the best selling one in thewWorld. Of course some countries have more dealers but still.
And how...? Yes: tax bonus. A break on all Dutch car taxes because of low emission.
What I like very much, is that cars like this show that driving can still be fun and coll in the future.
A Toyota didn't help for the cool image of hybrid cars. Because it is a boring car. But this, well...
Everyone stares at it, they thinks it looks great. That is its big power. That makes it something we should be glad about.
+ looks great, drives quite dynamic - 2.300 kg is a lot, awfull multimediasytem.