Industry News: Fisker Issues Recall On Karmas For Fire Risk

[William Maley]

William Maley

Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com

August 20, 2012

Over the weekend, Fisker announced a recall of over 2,000 of its Karma plug-in hybrid sedans due to risk of fires. The recall was issued a couple weeks after a fire engulfed the driver's front side of a Karma sitting a parking lot.

Fisker called on the help of Pacific Rim Investigative Services Group to figure out the cause of the fire on August 10. The investigation found the ignition source was a low temperature cooling fan, which “had an internal fault that cause it to fail, overheat and start a slow burning fire.”

To keep this from happening again, dealers will replace the cooling fan with an updated one. Also, dealers will add an extra fuse to the system for protection.

This is the second fire that has claimed a Karma and the third recall since December. The first recall dealt with a coolant leak for 240 Karmas. Then, 600 Karmas were recalled due to a battery defect.

Source: Wired's Autopia

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[ocnblu]

Ban this junk, good grief.

[David]

Ban this junk, good grief.

I would not call it junk, but I think it is far more experimental than they are willing to admit.

Better yet is if they would sell their 300 Mile range battery technology to GM or Ford so it could go into mass production that everyone can have access too.

If they want people to move off Petrol and onto something else, then they got to get it to the masses, not the 1%.

[Drew Dowdell]

Seems like a relatively simple fix. At least they reacted faster than GM or Toyota would have.

[ocnblu]

You're honestly putting them in with GM and Toyota? These playboy amateurs? Any problem with these kit cars is amplified because of who they are, OF COURSE they need to react quicker... plus there is a miniscule number of these things in the hands of fools customers, there is very little investigating needed to see if there is real trouble. No large sample to pull info from before considering a recall.

[David]

Was at PSE (Puget Sound Energy) today in Bellevue where they had an alternative energy show for businesses, governments and individuals. Handed out lots of business cards.

Saw this car finally in person and was able to sit in it and check it out. First, they built it for small people in comparison to me. Had to recline to actually sit in it and no way anyone could sit behind me. Fit and Finish was amazing but then for a hand built car of little production I would expect it to be.

Funny part was someone else asked about the fires and the rep said it was nothing, just a little fix in a fan and then he changed it to other topics and focused on the long range it gets compared to other electric cars.

Still the price is a limiting factor for most people and a useless car for businesses.

[Drew Dowdell]

It is an unusually packaged car. The Atlantic is much more conventional, though you may still not for as it has an interior just slightly larger than a 3-series.