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.”
Pictures taken on location by the unnamed source show several examples of the $100,000+ luxury sports car burned to the ground.
The cause of the fires remains a mystery for now, but we did contact Fisker and will provide an update as soon as we hear back from them.
The Karma has been the subject of multiple fire investigations, the most recent of which concerned a parked car that spontaneously self-combusted in California in August.
Update: Fisker just sent us the following press statement about the New Jersey incident:
October 30, 2012 Holding Statement
"It was reported today that several Fisker Karmas were damaged by fire at the Port of Newark after being submerged in sea water during Superstorm Sandy. We can report that there were no injuries and none of the cars were being charged at the time.
We have confidence in the Fisker Karma and safety is our primary concern. While we intend to find the cause as quickly as possible, storm damage has restricted access to the port.
We will issue a further statement once the root cause has been determined."
Photo Credits : Jalopnik
9 Comments:
Those Karmas are completely burnt toast. I'm all for EV's and love the physical design of these models but water causing this type of complete destruction combined with previous incidents should signal a glaring red flag for internal engineering to re-examine every aspect of vehicle safety. Luckily no one was in them and no by-standers were injured at the time.
Obviously there is a design problem which allows electricity to arc in the power supply system, thereby generating enormous heat, and it seems that salt water provides a conductor which exacerbates the problem. If the designers are smart, they'll take some of their test models and submerge them in a similar manner, and with proper monitoring equipment it should be easy to observe exactly what's going on.
They want you to think that.
The headline is incorrect as the Fisker Karma is not an EV. It's a hybrid, so it also has an ICE, gas tank etc.
Good riddance.
Fisker sounds like a save car to own, first rain it it burns.
is any car going to fare better being submerged? most electronics don't survive being submerged and this is no different.
Time to WAKE UP
We might all want to look into this one. Something else
happened here. I mean missing door handles and front grills missing?
Star Wars Beam Weapons?
http://drjudywood.com/articles/DEW/StarWarsBeam5.html
yikes, karma is a b1tch
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