Electric sex on wheels: The Fisker Karma

On May 17th, the Fisker Karma made it's way to Orlando on it's nationwide tour. The car was at Fields BMW in Winter Park for 2 hours to let people have a look at this gorgeous EV.

Spectators were able to get in and around the car without limit, kinda nice considering this prototype is two of a kind in the world. However, it was at a posh BMW dealership, everyone was dressed up, and there was champagne flowing...so the biggest risk was a spilled drink..

The car was beautiful...inside and out. Here are some noteworthy tidbits that I learned...

• The trim and leatherwork are very well done...lots of attention to detail!  Beautiful!
• It has two fuel filler doors on each side of the car on the rear quarter panels...electrons on the left and gas on the right.
• The car was driven into the showroom before the event, but we didn't see it move or run.
  
• The exhaust pipe seems to be behind the diamond shaped ports on the lower bumper.  
• The legroom in the back seat is a bit tight for me (kinda like a flight on Delta), but I'm 6'2".  Up front there's lots of room.
• You can tell where they put the batteries...there's quite a wall down the center of the car.  
• The trunk holds two golf bags
• The analog looking "gauges" are actually LCD screens
• There are two flapper switches on the steering wheel...one sez "Sport" and one sez "Hill".  I'm guessing the Hill switch is like the Volt's Mountain setting? 
• The center console information panel was in demo mode...showing that you could control climate, radio, GPS and get info. 
  
• I still don't know what the solar panels on the roof do...help with A/C or charge batteries?
  

I expected to see more enthusiast at the event. While there were people checking the car out, several of the people I talked to were checking out their $1.5M investment into Fisker.  While this was surprising, the clincher was that the majority of these people were over 65...making it very cool that people in their conservative age would put down that much cash on a new type of car from a new car company.

One of the investors was a elderly lady that was asking salesperson good questions on every detail of the car...it was impressive...and she was impressed with her investment.

Overall, I was also very impressed with the look and feel of the car.  It's by far one of the best looking cars I've seen.  The best part is that it's built upon one of the smartest hybrid platforms in development (series hybrid).  If it drives and handles as good as it looks, these investors should be quite happy.