Fisker Karma drives Laguna Seca

We’re becoming a bit blasé about the accomplishments of modern car technology. We blithely moan about the lack of the ‘Drive’ in cars like the Toyota Prius, and complain when cars ‘only’ do 50mpg. How times change.

But unhappy as we are at Cars UK with the world’s obsession with all things green – and hybrid / electric cars in general – even we have to admit that some of the work that’s going on does impress us. The Tesla Roadster is a great achievement – if madly expensive for what it is (an electric Lotus) – and the work Koenigsegg are doing with the Quant is very exciting.

But one company that is efficiently going about putting together a workable, high performance car is Fisker, who have been working on their electric saloon car – The Fisker Karma – for less than two years. And in that two years they have taken it from a concept to almost road ready.

The Karma has two electric motors that can produce up to 400bhp. They are powered by a 200 KW Li-Ion battery pack that’s charged by a 260bhp petrol four-pot. Fully charged, the batteries are good for 50 miles before the engine kicks in to recharge.

Driving the Fisker Karma at the Laguna Seca racetrack was Fisker boss Henrik Fisker, who said:

“This demonstration represents a significant milestone for Fisker Automotive and PHEV technology. The future of clean cars is bright.”

And he deserves to be chuffed. The Karma will do 0-60 mph in 6 seconds and 125mph. And it will average out around 100mpg with lower emissions than existing hybrids.

The Fisker Karma is due to go in to production by the end of the year, with US prices under the $100k mark.