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"Wanting to take a real shakedown road trip with the Fisker Karma, we scanned the map for a proper destination and came up with a place called Biosphere 2. Located in Arizona, some 440 miles east of our current offices in Newport Beach, California, this remote facility is a sort of a futuristic architectural wonder that doubles as an experimental greenhouse/enclosed environmental laboratory in the mountains northeast of Tucson.        2012 Fisker Karma EcoChic    It seemed like an appropriate choice because, like the Karma, Biosphere 2 is both quite beautiful and built to explore the boundaries of environmental technology. It was also expensive to build, somewhat controversial and government subsidized. Fisker got a federal loan of $529 million to develop and build their cars (only $169 million used so far on the Karma), and Biosphere 2, which started out as a private foundation, is presently owned and supported by the University of Arizona, so it all fits together, ja?        2012 Fisker Karma EcoChic    In hitting the road with the Karma, however, we wanted to do more than just find a symbolic photo backdrop; we also hoped to put some real road miles on the car and see what it was like to live with. That, and answer the basic bystander questions that popped up virtually every place we stopped: &amp;quot;What exactly is this car, and what is it trying to do? What&amp;#039;s it for?&amp;quot;        2012 Fisker Karma EcoChic    Is it an expensive ($116,000 as tested) and powerful (402-hp) luxury 4-door sports car that just happens to have a hybrid gasoline/electric drivetrain, or is it a boundary-pushing technological marvel that will allow even the very wealthy and discriminating car buff a chance to participate in reduced carbon emissions? Nearly everyone wanted to know what it was like to drive. So did we. But first, a look at the basic architecture of the thing.        2012 Fisker Karma EcoChic    The Karma is classified as a plug-in hybrid with the drivetrain in series configuration. Which is to say it&amp;#039;s a rear-drive car with a gasoline engine under the shapely hood\u2014a 260-bhp turbocharged GM Ecotec 2.0-liter inline-4. As in a diesel locomotive, the engine never drives the rear wheels directly. Instead, it runs a 175-kW generator that charges a large lithium-nanophosphate battery pack that runs down the center of the car&amp;#039;s aluminum frame. The battery, in turn, powers a pair of 201-hp electric motors located fore and aft of the rear axle.        2012 Fisker Karma EcoChic    So what we have here is a 403-hp car with prodigious quantities of instantly available electric motor torque\u2014959 lb.-ft. starting from zero rpm. All of this wizardry is not made from helium, of course, so the Karma&amp;#039;s weight\u20145430 lb.\u2014somewhat mitigates the effect.   Twin &amp;quot;gas caps&amp;quot; sit on the rear flanks. One accepts 9.0 gal. of premium unleaded and the other a 110- or 220-volt plug-in. Full charging time is 10\u201312 hours (aka all night, plus breakfast) on 110 volts, and the 220 takes about half as long. A &amp;quot;Hill&amp;quot; paddle to the right of the steering wheel also feeds coasting energy into the battery, as does a 120-volt solar panel in the roof that helps power the car&amp;#039;s 12-volt accessory systems.        2012 Fisker Karma EcoChic    The Karma&amp;#039;s sensuous body flows tightly over a set of tall 22-in. wheels separated by a very long 124.4-in. wheel-base. That&amp;#039;s almost 9 in. longer than my old Cadillac DTS, though the Karma&amp;#039;s styling doesn&amp;#039;t suffer from this stretch, nor, as we shall see, does the car&amp;#039;s handling. All&amp;#039;s well that ends, as a friend of mine often says.        2012 Fisker Karma EcoChic    On the morning we left Newport Beach, the battery was fully charged and it lasted for exactly 30 miles of mostly city driving before the gasoline engine kicked in. As we hit the open highway, I found the Ecotec gas engine surprisingly quiet and non-intrusive from inside the car; you hardly notice the transition from pure battery to charging modes. You do notice the fuel gauge drop, however. On our first fill-up, only 180 miles after running out of charge, we got 19.9 mpg. (Overall mileage for the 880-mile trip would be 20.5 mpg.) That makes for fairly short range, so you have to keep your eye on the fuel gauge.        2012 Fisker Karma EcoChic    From the moment we pulled away from the office, my immediate impression of the car is that it feels solid and well-built, with superb ride and taut-yet-fluid suspension compliance. The steering is perfectly weighted, for my tastes, with just the right touch of heaviness on-center, responsive turn-in and good road feel through the wheel. A sense of refinement and quality comes through instantly. Not for nothing have designer Henrik Fisker and Chief Operating Officer Bernhard Koehler come to us through BMW and Aston Martin. This chassis could be a product of either company, and that&amp;#039;s high praise. Interestingly, members of the suspension design team also worked on the Ford GT program.        2012 Fisker Karma EcoChic    Augmenting ride quality, the 6-way adjustable seats accommodated my tall frame and iffy lower back quite comfortably, with good lumbar support. Also, the a/c cranked out plenty of cold air, despite temperatures being above 110 degrees F for most of our trip. Our car was the top-of-the-line EcoChic model, with a &amp;quot;non-animal&amp;quot; interior that has seats made of fabric-based suede and a small amount of wood trim made from timber reclaimed from California forest fires or sunken logs from the bottom of Lake Michigan. Next step down is the EcoSport model with leather trim ($111,000) and the bottom of this very posh barrel is the $103K EcoStandard. In any case, fit, finish and materials in our EcoChic model were appropriately flawless for a car in this price range.        2012 Fisker Karma EcoChic    The only barrier to total bliss within the Karma&amp;#039;s cabin is the touchscreen nav/sound/temperature control system, which is unnecessarily complicated and nonintuitive, requiring much study of the owner&amp;#039;s manual to, say, turn the fan down. After experimenting with the touchscreen for a while, photographer Guy Spangenberg said, &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a good thing this is a low-emissions car, because the smoke coming out my ears could ruin the atmosphere.&amp;quot; A few simple knobs would make this car&amp;#039;s interior much friendlier. It&amp;#039;s what I call a Jagger/Richards dash: You can&amp;#039;t always get what you want.        2012 Fisker Karma EcoChic    In western Arizona we stopped at a rest stop after using a half-tank of fuel, and as we pulled back onto I-10, two warning lights lit up on the dash\u2014a loose fuel-cap symbol and a check engine light. We checked the fuel cap, which seemed properly tightened, and then called the Fisker engineers. They said the gas-cap light would go out when we filled up again and the engine light\u2014part of the same system\u2014would have to be reset at the dealership. We suspected heat expansion, as it was an oven-like 112 degrees at the rest stop. As they claimed, the gas-cap light went out after we refueled, and the engine light stayed on for the entire trip. The car ran fine, however. Like a train, literally.        2012 Fisker Karma EcoChic    On a winding stretch of desert road near Biosphere 2, I found the Karma to be quite flingable and fun to drive. It has immense grip and transitions to light understeer if you push it hard, turning in with an easy, intuitive precision. Though it feels weighty and solid, its low center of gravity makes it quite nimble, and the only effect of the long wheelbase seems to be a stable and composed ride quality over bumps. The big brakes work well, with a moderately hard pedal and just a hint of grabbiness as you slow to a complete stop. The Hill paddle also has a braking effect, almost like downshifting a conventional gearbox, and adds several miles of range on a long descent.        2012 Fisker Karma EcoChic    The transmission (normally shifted via a button on a little pyramid that looks like a New Age crystal) has a Sport setting on the left steering wheel paddle, which gives you full available torque and power by raising engine rpm and charging rate. This pays off in sustained hard driving, but the car already has so much torque on tap that using the Sport mode doesn&amp;#039;t effect a dramatic transition. The Karma is at its best moving quickly through traffic, but still has reasonably good passing power on the highway. It&amp;#039;s not in the manic ZR1 league, but fast enough to please all but the most lead-footed. In testing, we did 0\u201360 in 5.9 seconds and the quarter mile in 14.7 sec. at 94.2 mph. Top speed is electronically limited to 125 mph.        2012 Fisker Karma EcoChic    Interestingly, whenever you shift gears on the &amp;quot;magic crystal shifting pyramid,&amp;quot; a long streak of colored light flashes under a semi-opaque panel on the console etched with the veins of leaf fronds. The car also emits various beaming, spacey sounds to tell you it&amp;#039;s running or, at low speed, to warn pedestrians that an otherwise silent electric car is coming. These noises sound, variously, like the Music of the Spheres or Jimmy Page warming up on a theremin. In any case, they&amp;#039;re almost subliminally quiet and somewhat soothing. Just don&amp;#039;t eat the mushrooms in Arizona and you&amp;#039;ll be fine.        2012 Fisker Karma EcoChic    We had a great time exploring Biosphere 2, where the gigantic Aztec-pyramid-like greenhouse encapsulated a vast rain forest of breathtaking heat and humidity, while the air conditioned offices next to the Coke machine were also of great scientific interest to Guy and me. They had an outdoor electric-car charging system, but we couldn&amp;#039;t stay long enough to put any discernible charge back into our battery. The whole facility is absolutely beautiful, perched on a scenic ridge of Sonoran desert overlooking the Santa Catalina Mountains. I may have to go back and get a degree in botany or window glazing so I can live there.        2012 Fisker Karma EcoChic    On the trip home, we came perilously close (15 miles remaining range) to running out of gas. The fuel gauge goes down rapidly on its second half, especially when you&amp;#039;re climbing into a headwind. The good thing is, however, you can get fuel and keep driving\u2014uphill at 75 or 80 mph, with plenty of kick to spare\u2014which pretty much defines the Karma&amp;#039;s versatility.   If you had a short daily commute (say, from Bel Air to Universal Studios) and could plug the car in at night, you&amp;#039;d never have to stop at a gas station. But if you want to get out of town for the weekend, you can\u2014accepting that the highway mileage will be worse than a Corvette&amp;#039;s. It&amp;#039;s worth remembering, though, that the Karma is a 4-seater, and you can actually put humans back there. Children or small people will be happiest, but even I can fit in the back seat for a reasonable distance. Also, there&amp;#039;s a small, moderately useful trunk, even if the oddly curved hinges intrude on its depth.        2012 Fisker Karma EcoChic    So who is the Karma built for?   Well, someone who has more than $100K to spend and wants a handsome high-performance 4-seat sports car that draws a crowd of curious car buffs wherever it goes, an unexpected sight that&amp;#039;s a little outside the norm, visually and technically. It also has to be someone who doesn&amp;#039;t mind the mixed blessings of free lunch and slight inconvenience that come with owning a plug-in hybrid.        2012 Fisker Karma EcoChic    That lunch is not totally free, of course. The EPA uses a complicated mpg-equivalent formula for fuel use at electrical powerplants, and that gives the car an official rating of 54 mpg for the first 33 miles of range. After that, it drops to 20 mpg combined city/highway. This is still class-leading efficiency among high-end performance hybrids, but, needless to say, it&amp;#039;s not going to make a big dent in world oil consumption anytime soon\u2014unless the Karma stays in town and lots of folks buy them. Could happen, I suppose; Fisker has sold just under 1000 of these cars so far. And, as we&amp;#039;re discovering, reduced energy use comes from winning a plethora of small battles rather than a few big, easy ones. Everything helps.   Perhaps we should just consider this a luxury sports car that&amp;#039;s taking us in an interesting and upbeat direction, providing style and performance without the depressing onus of a gas-guzzler tax. The Karma may be an outlook on life as much as a car. Maybe that explains the name. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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