Having an A-list of celebrities like Leonardo Di Caprio, Al Gore and Justin Bieber as your clients is good for promoting your brand-new hybrid luxury sedan.

On the downside, receiving an EPA consumption rating far-far away from your own figures, issuing a recall over a potential fire risk just a couple of months after deliveries started and having your US$529 million federal loan blocked are quite serious setbacks.

Now Fisker has to face another publicity disaster after the US$100,000 Karma evaluated by Consumer Reports went kaput during speed testing. We’ll remind you that Consumer Reports buys its test vehicles from regular dealers.

“It’s a little disconcerting that you pay that amount of money for a car and it lasts basically 180 miles before going wrong”, CR senior director for automotive testing David Champion told Reuters.

Fisker, which sent two engineers to examine the car and determine the cause of the break down, issued a statement saying, “It’s important to note that with more than 400 Fisker Karma sedans already on the road in the U.S., we also have many satisfied customers who are enjoying daily commutes in their cars.”

Well, Consumer Reports have also tested both the much cheaper Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt, which have sold in far greater numbers, without experiencing any problems.

Champion said that the incident won’t affect the Karma’s reliability score, since this is based on CR subscribers’ evaluation.

He also clarified that it will not affect the magazine’s testing the luxury plug-in hybrid: “It is going to delay possibly getting our testing done if it keeps on breaking. It’s just an unfortunate delay in our evaluation. It can’t be helpful, but it’s one of those things. Cars break down, but you don’t expect them to break down in the first couple of days.”

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