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NEWS
Glamorous but troubled Fisker Karma chalks up another celebrity buyer
Electrical fires, software bugs, recalls... But hey! Cee Lo Green's bought one!PHEV glamour marque Fisker has announced the next in a growing string of celebrities to avail themselves of its sleek Karma, with the Twitter announcement from its Atlanta dealership that “we would like to welcome @CeeLoGreen to our family of #FiskerKarma owners”.
Green, a big-voiced soul singer known as half of duo Gnarls Barkley and these days better known for a YouTube sensation song called “F#ck You”, joins Justin Bieber and Leonardo DiCaprio among the well-heeled buyers of their rolling slice of 21st century enviro-chic.
The Karma could have been made as a celebrity ride. With smart Italianate lines from the pen of Henrik Fisker, the man behind Aston’s DB9 and V8 Vantage and BMW’s stunning 1990s Z8 concept-turned-Bondmobile, it’s quite the attention grabber.
But of late the attention hasn’t been all good, with repeated reports of problems. Many of these could be categorised as the kind of teething troubles you might expect of a new technology from a startup company. But that comes as cold comfort for those who’ve stumped up more than US$100K for one, even with the early-adopter caveats.
The Karma has been subject to three recalls in a year. The first saw a coolant leak shorting out an undischarged battery, starting a fire. Then came a 600-vehicle recall over a battery defect and a Texas house fire for which a new Karma in the garage picked up the blame from the fire department. In August came another fire in California, triggering a further 2000-car recall. (Perhaps ironically, the Karma interior contains timber trim recovered from trees taken by California wildfires…)
Earlier this year, influential consumer publication Consumer Reports gave its test Karma a bad rap after a breakdown and tow-away incident. The vehicle was paid for in full by the mag through a staffer shadow-shopping at a dealer.
To cap it all off, in August, motoring site Jalopnik published a leaked internal report highlighting a raft of problems with the car’s central command centre, its navigation interface and its engineless “stealth” driving mode.
Amid all that, what better way of deflecting attention from turbulence at Fisker HQ in Anaheim than by swinging the spotlight over to beautiful people draped over the Karma’s beautiful sheet metal? Alongside the diminutive white Bieber and Green, his exact physical opposite, none other than Leonardo DiCaprio turned up on UK Top Gear this week talking about his investment in Fisker as an expression of his commitment to Mother Earth’s wellbeing. (While it doesn’t yet turn up said interview, a YouTube search on “dicaprio top gear” does spit the Fisker Karma up in pole position.)
In fact, Henrik Fisker traces the origins of his company to the moment he saw Leo arriving at the Oscars in a Toyota Prius. “I saw you getting out of the Prius, and I thought there's got to be a market for an environmentally friendly car which goes beyond the Prius. That was my first inspiration,” he told Leo on Top Gear.
DiCaprio recounted in the interview that he liked Fisker’s extended-range EV idea after buying two full EVs and never wanting to drive them from range anxiety. He also bought into Fisker on the strength of the Karma’s look and feel. Along with drawing attention to his eponymous charitable foundation, he hopes his investment yields financial dividends one day. For that, he’s looking to Fisker’s second car, the more affordable Atlantic, for which the company is struggling to raise production funds. The aim, he said, is to give everyone the chance to drive a car like this, not just the wealthy and famous.
First things first, though. That mean giving those who’ve already bought one a chance to drive it...
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Written byJeremy Bass
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