It’s been a rough road for Fisker Automotive, and a rough road for owners of its Fisker Karma as well. After producing a couple thousand copies of its Karma plug-in hybrid sedan, the company went bankrupt in late 2013. It was bought out of bankruptcy in February 2014 by Chinese auto-parts maker Wanxiang, which is trying to relaunch the company. As part of that effort, dubbed New Fisker (thenewfisker.com), it is reaching out to current Karma owners with an offer of up to $5000 in free parts and service.
-Current Karma owners, who paid on the order of $100,000 for their green machines back in 2012, could use a little stroking. The Karma has been plagued with quality problems—the company’s new owners have identified some 250 “bugs” that need to be worked out before production can restart—and they’ve had nowhere to get their cars fixed.
-Recognizing that it needs to placate current owners before it can hope to sell any new cars, Wanxiang has set up 15 service centers in the U.S. and Canada, and is offering Karma owners $2000 in credit toward parts—or, for original owners, $4000 in parts credit plus $1000 to cover labor.
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- Comparison Test: 2012 Fisker Karma vs. 2012 Chevy Volt
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- Instrumented Test: 2012 Fisker Karma
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- The Race of the Centuries: 2013 Tesla Model S vs. 1915 Ford Model T
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That’s probably not enough to vault Fisker to the top of any customer-satisfaction surveys, but it is a sign of life from a company that has big plans. Fisker’s new owners have said that they want to restart production of the Karma (which they’re renaming the Elux Karma ), and also put into production the Atlantic mid-size sedan, and Fisker’s other concept cars, the Surf wagon and the Sunset convertible. In an interview last year with Bloomberg, Wanxiang chairman and founder Lu Guanqiu said he was determined to build EVs in the United States, or go bust trying. Current Karma owners are probably hoping the latter doesn’t happen (again) too soon.
-from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/1E5eXSY
via Agya
