Fisker Karma May Live On Through Bob Lutz's V8-Powered Destino

The Fisker Karma is a pretty car, further emphasizing Henrik Fisker's talent in designing great-looking automobiles. However, aside from the sexy shape, the car was let down by poor quality materials, finish and build. Furthermore, the range-extender powertrain, while competent, never offered the level of performance one would expect from a car looking like that.

Now, chances are we won’t be seeing any more Karmas being made, as the company has gone under bankruptcy, however, there still may be some hope, in the form of the Destino, which is basically the same car, but with a GM-sourced V8 engine shoehorned under the bonnet.

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2014MY Fisker Karma Updates Purportedly Leaked by Laid Off Employees

After years of troubles, Fisker Automotive lost its founder, laid off most of its employees and effectively shut down its operations as it seeks bankruptcy protection. Unless a miracle happens, the future for the California-based carmaker looks extremely bleak.

Until we see how this story ends or continues, we can share some different kind of news about the company as we received a tip pointing us towards the Fiskerbuzz forum where the automaker's laid off employees allegedly posted a picture and some details of the tweaked 2014 model year Karma.

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Henrik Fisker Says he Dined and Wined at Least 500 Karma Buyers

Even if you’ve bought the obscenely expensive Lexus LFA, chances are that you haven’t had dinner with Mr. Akio Toyoda. The same applies to any car owner and the CEO of the company that manufactured his or her vehicle.

Unless you are a Fisker Karma buyer, that is. Henrik Fisker told AutoblogGreen that, instead of a traditional campaign, the company is thinking of “more innovative ways of doing marketing”; and that includes meals with buyers and potential customers.

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Fisker Looks for Strategic Partners in China, Hasn’t Built a Car in Six Months

The Karma might look gorgeous but things aren’t looking very good for its maker, Fisker, right now. In 2012, despite having delivered some 2,000 Karmas, it’s had its federal loan frozen, issued a number of recalls on the Karma, saw its battery supplier, A123 Systems, go bankrupt and 16 of its cars being destroyed by hurricane Sandy and, to top it all, it hasn’t built a single car in the past six months.

So the company is looking for partners and investors. And what better place to turn to than a country that wants to acquire high-end EV technology? That would be China; according to a report from Reuters, Fisker’s top executives are trying to find a strategic partner that would help them get things started again.

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Fisker CEO Says Carmaker is Looking for Partners, Shopping Out its Hybrid Technology

Having cars like the Aston Martin DB9 and V8 Vantage and the BMW Z8 in your portfolio is quite an achievement. Building your own car company from scratch beats that – even more so, when you factor in that you haven’t celebrated your 50th birthday yet.

Henrik Fisker is the man who has done all of the above. Fisker Automotive may have rolled out its Karma luxury plug-in hybrid sedan but is facing some problems, the most pressing of which is the lack of finance.

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Fisker Wraps Investigation of Karma Fires at New Jersey Port, Blames One Car's Vehicle Control Unit

Last week, Sandy's furious tempest resulted in 16 brand-new Fisker Karma sedans and three Toyota Prius hybrids going up in flames at a shipping facility in New Jersey after being submerged in seawater for many hours.

While we have yet to hear from Toyota, Fisker's engineers finished investigating the incident and have just released their findings through a press statement.

According to the manufacturer, the culprit turned out to be a low voltage Vehicle Control Unit in one Karma, which after being under salt water for several hours, short-circuited and caused a fire that then spread to the other 15 extended-range plug-in hybrid models parked nearby due to the strong winds blowing at the time.

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Mega Storm Sandy Submerges 16 New Fisker Karma EVs, which Then Catch Fire at New Jersey Port

The bad news for Fisker continues. Among the many victims of Hurricane and then Tropical Storm Sandy are approximately 16 brand new Fisker Karma extended-range hybrids that were parked in Port Newark, New Jersey.

An eyewitness told Jalopnik (which like the rest of the Gawker websites, continues to be down after Sandy drowned its data center but is broadcasting temporarily from this site), that the Karma sedans “first submerged in a storm surge and then caught fire, exploded.”

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Fisker Karma Gets Colorful Wraps for its First Visit to the SEMA Show

Even Fisker cannot resist the lure of the SEMA aftermarket show, which it will be attending along with re-skinned examples of its Karma plug-in hybrid luxury sports sedan.

To be honest, there's nothing really dramatic about Fisker's SEMA show Karma saloons as the California-based automaker has simply chosen to display a car dressed in protective film wraps from 3M to highlight its newly formed partnership with the company, and a second custom-painted model dedicated to synthetic motor oil brand Mobil 1.

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Fisker Karma Once Again Lambasted by Consumer Reports in its Latest Tests

With over 8 million subscribers and more than 50 labs, Consumer Reports claims to be the world’s largest independent product-testing organization. As far as the automotive industry is concerned, falling short of CR’s standards could spell bad news or at least bad publicity for any new model.

In its latest issue, the publication tested the Ford Escape Titanium and SE compact SUVs and the Infiniti JX, while also conducting two comparison tests: one in the compact upmarket segment, where the Acura ILX faced the Buick Verano, and the other in the luxury sedan category with the Fisker Karma placed against the Porsche Panamera S.

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Fisker Says Karma Hybrid Luxury Saloon Already Surpasses 2025 CAFE Standards

The launch of Fisker’s first product, the Karma, has not gone as smoothly as the automaker would have liked to. Delays in production and recalls over a battery-related fire risk wasn’t exactly the publicity company founder Henrik Fisker was expecting for the luxury hybrid saloon.

On Tuesday, though, the upstart manufacturer announced that the Karma already surpasses the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards that were finalized on August 28 by the NHTSA and EPA and will come into effect in 2025.

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What do You Say About a Chrome-Wrapped Fisker Karma with Neon Underglow Lights?

We cannot confirm if this Fisker Karma sports sedan does indeed belong to Justin Bieber as claimed by YouTube user "Speedracer39" who shared the video, but we can say that the owner of this six-figure plug-in hybrid has gone a bit overboard with the mods.

Besides the full-body chrome wrap, the blacked-out alloy wheels and heavily tinted windows, the owner came up with the bright (literally) idea of adding so-called "neon underglow lights" that change colors while the car is on the move.

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Fisker Hosts Largest Karma Gathering Ever, All Cars Keep Their Cool

Fisker has been through a lot lately – and we're not only talking about its financial issues but more about the Karma-related recalls and fires.

Fortunately for Fisker, no one had to call the fire brigade during the largest gathering of Karma sedans at the company’s global headquarters in Anaheim, California over the weekend.

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Fisker Finds that Cooling Fan Unit to Blame for Latest Karma Fire Incident, Announces New Recall

Fisker in cooperation with an independent fire expert from Pacific Rim Investigative Services Group has completed an investigation regarding a recent incident in which a Karma plug-in hybrid saloon caught on fire while sitting at a parking lot outside of a grocery store in Woodside, California, on August 10.

The company's engineers and the fire expert said that the ignition source and root cause of the fire was traced to a cooling fan unit located ahead of the left front wheel.

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Fisker Investigating Latest Karma Fire in California, Releases First Findings

Fisker made headlines for all the wrong reasons this past weekend when one of its Karma plug-in hybrid sedans burst into flames at a parking lot in Woodside, California on Friday.

Following a short statement on Saturday, Fisker issued a more detailed announcement today saying that its engineers in cooperation with independent investigators from Pacific Rim Investigative Group have begun preliminary examination and testing on the Karma model involved in the fire.

The automaker has already shared some of the findings.

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More Bad Karma for Fisker as Another Model Goes up in Flames

Fisker just can't seem to get a break. Only months after the Karma was said to have been the source of a fire that broke out in a garage of a Texas house, another example of the hybrid-electric luxury sedan went up in flames while parked outside a grocery store in Woodside, California.

The details surrounding the incident are extremely thin and we still do not know the cause of the fire.

Jalopnik reported that according to an eyewitness, the owner of the Karma went inside the grocery store and came out shortly after to discover smoke seeping out of the vehicle. The driver then called Fisker who told him to call 911.

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Fisker Expands Previous 2012 Karma Recall Over Battery Fire Risk

As it turns out, Fisker's existing voluntary recall of 239 Karma sedans in December 2011 did not cover all the affected models.

Today, the California-based automaker issued a supplementary recall that adds to the list a further 19 cars manufactured from September 22, 2011, through January 20, 2012, ten of which have already been delivered to customers, according to Fisker.

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Officials Say Fisker Karma was the Origin of a Texas House Fire

The Fisker Karma is once again under the spotlight following two widely publicized incident regarding a recent recall for its A123-supplied battery pack that posed a fire risk and a car that shut down only a few days after Consumer Reports purchased a brand new example from a dealer.

This time, a Karma is under investigation for a fire that broke out in a garage and quickly spread to a house in Houston last week, fortunately, without anyone being hurt in the incident.

The chief fire investigator for Fort Bend County, Texas, Robert Baker, told Autoweek magazine that the Fisker Karma started the fire.

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