After numerous delays, the 2012 Fisker Karma plug-in electric performance car will finally be heading to showrooms by the end of this month. According to British automotive magazine Autocar, Fisker’s first customer will be actor and committed environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio, with Al Gore and Colin Powell set to follow.
Just five Karmas will be built per week at Fisker’s assembly plant in Finland until November, when production is expected to increase to 300 units per week. Three thousand pre-orders for the car have been tallied, so Fisker expects all Karmas to be accounted for until early 2012. With a former General Motors assembly plant in Wilmington, Delaware getting re-tooled for production, Fisker CEO Henrik Fisker expects to build up 100,000 EVs annually by 2014.
An extended-range EV like the Chevrolet Volt, the 4-passenger Karma features a 20-kWh lithium-ion battery pack and pair of 150-kW electric motors displacing a combined equivalent of 403 horsepower. The battery pack will propel the car about 50 miles before a 260 horsepower turbocharged 2.0-liter gasoline engine takes over for another 250 miles of range.
With combined power from electric motors and the internal-combustion engine, the Fisker Karma can sprint from 0-60 mph in under 6 seconds and reach a top speed of 125 mph. Fisker also says that the Karma will be capable of 100 miles per gallon. All that performance and technology will set buyers like DiCaprio back about $100,000.
“This is an exciting time for Fisker,” said Fisker Automotive Chief Operating Officer, Bernhard Koehler. “As we bring the Fisker Karma sedan to market and start delivering to customers, we are simultaneously starting to employ a world-class American workforce to build world-class American electric vehicles with extended range (EVer) in a re-commissioned American plant.”
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