I was playing around on eBay looking at all the beautiful cars I can't afford, so I did a search on Fisker Karma and saw there were quite a few for sale in the mid to high 5 figures. For current owners of the Fisker and future owners of these used Fiskers, who can provide any sort of maintenance for these vehicles and or spare parts? If the motor has a catastrophic failure, or the motor/generator fails, or some sort of electronic code is thrown by the software, can it even be fixed?
From what I understand it is very similar to the Volt in terms of battery and layout with the generator being a bigger engine so I would assume Chevy dealers?
Good luck with that. I don't think a Chevy dealer would want to screw with it. The ICE is a GM engine but that's along w/the T-shaped battery is about where the similarity ends. It is a true serial hybrid, unlike the Volt where (in CS mode) the ICE can participate in turning the wheels. Per Just What Assets Does Fisker Have to Buy? | The Truth About Cars and many others, the powertrain is supplied by Quantum Technologies. The batteries are from A123, that went bankrupt then got bought by a Chinese company.
I'd imagine you're on your own. Independent mechanics could probably work on the gas engine, as well as the generic car parts (suspension, steering, brakes, etc.) and the electric motor/generator is not likely to fail, as there's probably about one moving part. But any parts failure might require an identical parts car, so you'd better buy two. And there might be nobody with dealer-level knowledge of the car, so your mechanic will have to study the shop manual, adding to the shop time and cost of repairs. And of course any software bugs that require reprogramming, you'd probably just have to live with unless someone can reverse engineer the software and develop upgrades. One nice thing about the Zap Xebra was that any mechanic could work on it easily. I knew when I bought my Tesla that if the company went under there'd probably be no way to make repairs. It was a risk I was willing to take, though it seems less and less likely to happen with each passing day.
Karma is neither good nor bad. It's <What goes around comes around> though sometimes in another life. It's fun to call karma when someone gets their comeuppance, but I don't actually believe in it. I don't believe in reincarnation, and all too often good folks suffer and bad folks prosper. But still, karma is neutral. As for Fisker, the company failed, perhaps due in part to reaching too high and poor management, but it hardly seems like the Karma was the victim of karma.
