Driving Report Fisker Karma Ecosport

The Fisker rolls with a “wrap - wrap” noise over the company yard at Etehad in Halstenbek. It sounds futuristic and it is. One of the two black karma just delivered has already been sold, the other the new demonstration vehicle. Fisker calls the shade “Eclipse” and it would be my choice.

We start our Fisker Karma tour in “Stealth Mode”, up to a speed of 40 KMH the Fisker Hybrid HZ outdoor loudspeaker warns pedestrians with a sound that comes from the future. We are traveling with a vehicle that can drive 83 kilometers purely electrically and which is the most environmentally friendly car on the market.

We roll purely electrically on 22 ″ rims through Halstenbek. The chassis is tightly defined, but comfortable. The huge solar roof charges the battery. In our latitudes, you should get free electricity for 350 kilometers a year just through the solar roof. The power supply can be easily followed on the touchscreen. After all, the annual feed corresponds to the route from Frankfurt am Main to Spa for the International Saab Meeting. Not bad !

The Fisker is almost 5 meters long and a good 2 meters wide. Not a small car, and yet after a few meters you get along so well with the Californian from Finland, as if you had never driven anything else. The ergonomics are right! The silence in the interior is impressive. Our test vehicle, fresh from the van, is accurately processed. Nothing rattles, nothing feels inferior. Henrik Fisker's first production car is great. Welcome to the upper class!

Out of Halstenbek, our tour takes you along the country road. In “stealth mode” it goes purely electrically from 0 to 100 in 7.9 seconds. Which is only half the story. The draft is enormous, only with battery power and 1300 Nm torque of the electric motors - accompanied by a jet-like noise, are simply fun. Caught ! I drive a politically correct electric car and write about fun. Where is this supposed to end?

It is really impressive in sports mode. The left rocker switch on the steering wheel turns on the 2 Liter Turbo and, as a stationary engine, delivers power to the lithium-ion batteries with a maximum of 3000 revolutions. In every operating condition, it remains a battery-powered car. The rear-wheel-driven Karma runs up to 200 kilometers per hour and accelerates to 6.6 kilometers per hour in 100 seconds. The passenger gets the use of the direct injection only by a slight background noise and even more driving pleasure. The manufacturer deliberately regulates the karma at 200 hourly kilometers. Enough is enough, and higher speeds are only interesting for our domestic market and nowhere else in the world. So much self-esteem is impressive, and I think that decision is good.

The Fisker sweeps across the highway, and the quiet interior gives a very special driving experience, the well-made, multi-cylinder luxury sedans with sporty impact can also approximate convey. But we're talking about a car with only 2.2 liters of fuel consumption.

The karma is a heavyweight. The batteries, placed in the center console and equipped with a lush cooling system, bring the car to 2.5 tons. Anyone who raises their eyebrows now is doing the Fisker an injustice. Because the center of gravity is, we're driving a sports car, placed extremely low, and the road location is phenomenal. Up on the autobahn - the entrance is cut quite sharp and the road is wet - the Fisker sticks to the surface.

On the highway the karma clears the left lane as if by itself. No, it literally sucks it empty. But, the car is new and we are cautious, yet the image of the whale's mouth is substantial. It does not matter if we want to overtake or not. The track is free. All this with a level of noise in the interior reminiscent of a concert hall. Now pulled the right rocker switch on the steering wheel. This will support you braking function, similar to a downhill help in off-road vehicles, one drives sportier and feeds more energy into the batteries via the recuperation.

The Karma is a driving car, the chassis provides the feedback that the driver needs. Not a synthetic driving experience as we know it from a large Japanese hybrid manufacturer. And the Fisker has long-distance potential. Would karma say to me "Hey Tom, would you like to go on a trip to Hamburg - Munich or even further across the Alps?" ... I would be there ... and the Fisker and I would be best friends.

The Fisker a perfect car? He's really damn good, and it's hard to find something to complain about. However, the payload is very limited and the trunk is too small and even lined with cheap felt. Probably only so that media boys have something to complain about.

Masoud Etehad took a whole day for us, and yet the hours passed too fast. Fiskers entry into the upper class has succeeded. The karma does not stay alone, a station wagon or rather a shooting brake follows. In the US, Fisker bought a former GM factory, upgraded it, and starting from 2014 rolls a smaller Fisker with a similar concept from the tape. The driven karma costs 124.000 Euro, a lot of money, but a special offer if I see prices from Ingolstadt, Munich or Stuttgart, who do not want to deliver so much future and individuality (yet).

An electric car can be desirable, it can be fun, that is our realization. It doesn't have to be ugly, have no weird design or resemble a sardine can. An electric car can be a sports car and passers-by can say "Wow - I want one like that too".

So Mark and I are a bit thoughtful when we leave Hamburg. We have bypassed the traffic jam of the Elbe tunnel, the highway in the south lies ahead. Our Saab is looking forward to many kilometers, the Turbo X sonicated with its exhaust sound to the environment. The S-Class, heading south, seems to have aged strangely over the day and looks like a vehicle from yesterday. Shortly after Hamburg comes a construction site, the lanes are laid together on a roadway. Towards the north, we face a Fisker Karma. With Polish license plate. The future has begun.

Text: tom@saabblog.net

Pictures: saabblog.net