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Fisker Karma Is First Car To Burn Underwater
The plight of the infamous, and quite inflammable, Fisker Karma (not to mention its now defaulted battery vendor A123) has been extensively documented on these pages in the past. Today, we bring it up again, to observe a curious extra feature which its proud buyers may have been unaware of. It appears that, as Jalopnik reports, the car only free government loans with a 0% (or even negative) IRR hurdle rate could conceive, is now the first one to proudly announce it is the only one of its type that merrily burns down... while submerged underwater. We fully expect that the next generation of Fiskers will charge at least $995 for this non-optional standard feature. In other news, perhaps it is time for Karma to issue yet another comprehensive total recall of all of its cars due to "fire risk" - the last one seems to have missed a spark plug or two: they can say this is a recall for the risk of "burning down alive while fully submerged undewater."
From Jalopnik:
Approximately 16 of the $100,000+ Fisker Karma extended-range luxury hybrids were parked in Port Newark, New Jersey last night when water from Hurricane Sandy’s storm surge apparently breached the port and submerged the vehicles. As Jalopnik has exclusively learned, the cars then caught fire and burned to the ground.
Our source tells us they were “first submerged in a storm surge and then caught fire, exploded.” This wouldn’t be the first time the vehicles, which use a small gasoline engine to charge batteries that provide energy to two electric motors, had an issue with sudden combustion.
h/t Yen Cross
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They should charge extra for that.
How many cars can burn underwater? It's a unique feature.
It's Karma, baby
So I guess this channel has become 'unstuffed'?
that's the brilliant idea behind the Volt - unstuffing the channel!
Willie Pete, bitchez.
(unsafe at any depth)
Idea for Fisker to increase demand by decreasing supply...
...English Channel stuffing.
Are those the free toasters you get when you open up a checking account?...
Hope you have hurricane, flood, and fire insurance. If your missing one your fucked
Fisher Karma is a bitch bitches!!!
You didn't build that. Your tax dollars did.
So I guess this means there won't be any hope for a Fisker submarine contract with the US Navy? aka the Fisker Subma...
Pinto is safer underwater than these.
TFA...totally fucking amazing! Are they made of potassium? Who are the dumb fucks that put venture money into this deal? At least Finalnd will be the nation that will deal with the most fallout from a BK. This fucking company is toast...now there is an idea! They could turn the cars into single use disposable toasters!
It's a feature. If there's a significant probability it's water damaged it blows itself up to minimize your future pain. Now if only they'd do that if the drivers answer the cell phone while moving.
This is just the self destruct feature like that on the USS Enterprise in Star Trek.
It's a selling feature that worked perfectly.
The new .... disposable ... electric submarine.
Brilliant.
It's more of a depth charge than a submarine. Boom!
Whiskey Pete. Much more tasteful, even more so.... Whiskey Peat.
The ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLAR Fisker Karma.
An "audacious" scam on the public only politicians & crony capitalists could come up with.
Actually, Willie Pete is non reactive in water. It reacts in air. Nice try tho.
Krugman probably wet himself at the picture of all that potential economic growth.
Does that Karma come with a bumper sticker? http://howstupidare.blogspot.com/2012/10/how-stupid-are-obama-2012-bumper.html
FIRE! And MOAR Green Shoots!
Nah...he shits himself...
Everyone with a lithium battery in it. Lithium + water = kaboom
Try drilling a hole in your laptop battery (via remote control bomb robot) and see what happens to the mini-bomb you carry around.
Stackers
And yet the mentally ill taking Lithium with water have rarely exploded.
Are they mutants you think?
Nope, they generally take Lithium Carbonate.
There are rather dramatic physical and chemical differences between the lithium carbonate (a salt) given to bipolar disorder patients and the pure lithium metal found in many batteries.
Please don't tell me that you believe that the calcium in your bones (you ARE aware that your bones contain calcium, yes?) exists in pure metallic form.
I dunno. How do you explain Goldschlager (lol)?
akak
It was humor.
People gotta stop thinking so linear.
Oh.
Never mind!
"People gotta stop thinking so linear"
People need to stop using English so bad(ly).
signed- Grammar Police
Oh yeah, the olde sodium fluoride, fluorosilicic acid and sodium fluorosilicate conundrum.
Wiil it help good old dad over in the Konzentrationslager while whitening and brightening Obey's tooth 10 different ways?
"And yet the mentally ill taking Lithium with water have rarely exploded.
Are they mutants you think?"
And those bastards told me sodium is also water reactive. But my sodium chloride shaker refuses to explode.
So an iPad could be an improvised IED?
Sure. Have a cell phone,(?) you are all terrorists now.
The first, and maybe last of its kind entry in the Guinness Book of World Records.
They should have unplugged it first.
Imagine drowning and burning alive at the same time... brutal.
Dethklok would be amused! :-)
Brutal.
Or drowning, electrocution, smoke inhalation, hypothermia and burning alive all at the same time. Geez, this is getting close to a Rasputin-esque scenario here.
All it's missing is a tiny trap door in the seat from which extends a tiny mallet that hammers you in the nuts as you experience your multideath.
AND a tiny mullet darting down your throat to assist with the asphyxiation.
Prince Namor is pissed!
I still don't get the whole hybrid thing. Anyone who buys these things - expecially at 100K a pop - needs their head examined.
but they do magic tricks
My hybrid makes excellent margaritas... and even walks the dog.
Larry Dallas
Dude, since the sixties TPTB have looking to put in place new supports which they could manipulate.
The old ideas of religion, ethnicity, and community fell apart.
So we see Green for happy feely Hipsters, we see Giai instead of God, and Halloween instead of Christmas.
you forget porn?? that is the biggest of the tent poles
dark pools of soros
Sure for men looking down it is always the biggest of the tentpoles.
Women on the other hand....
Fisker, Volt and the Elon Musk car are all SillyCon Valley/Gore/Obama green scams. They all get taxpayer money to build fake crap that does not work. Gore did this with nuke waste when he was VP. It was a total scam.
Payoffs to their buddies. Dem scum.
they work great in the lab... but the elements are not kind
same with tidal energy on a large scale - makes perfect sense until the logistics and corrosion sink in
Funny, my Volt, now over a year old, works great and gets for me, 185 net mpg. I love using it to kick ricky rice-racer's ass on the twisty mountain roads.
One wonders about all the hate about anything that doesn't guzzle gas around here. Oh, follow the money - you all are soo great at being skeptical about spin, but you bought into big oil's? Or you ARE big oil, astroturfing.
I'll keep driving my Volt, charged off my home solar system, thanks.
No one like you, apparently.
"I'll keep driving my Volt, charged off my home solar system, thanks."
Congrats. Maybe sometime around 2030 the gas savings will pay for the intial price difference.
...and you realize it costs more for production and during its life cycle than the most fuel efficient gasoline vehicle? You also realize it takes more energy to produce that vehicle and maintain it than a fuel efficient gasoline vehicle? You also realize that the batteries are so toxic that they are exported to third world shit holes for "recycling"? I could go on and on, but fact of the matter is, you and your ilk and ruining the evironment...
Their owners are saving the world for you and me.
The other day I am behind some Prius owner. Again, saving the environment by chain smoking cigs and then tossing the butts out the window.
Used it as a teaching moment for the kids.
Or rename it Obamacar and distribute it free to unsuspecting republican voters.
yup, hot and wet - whats not to like?
A word is born: They were doing so well in life, until they got fiskered.
Alkali metals and water, fun fun!
pods
The fire at Breezy Point....you did build that 'Merika.
Who had one in the garage?
I pretty much called this:
Mon, 10/29/2012 - 20:58 | 2929781 edb5s
Vote up! 7
Vote down! 0
I can only imagine what would happen to a Chevy Volt in this mess.
“I can only imagine what would happen to a Chevy Volt in this mess”
-just what it was designed to do..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xspo3Xxb8No
To tell the truth, I watched a video of GM testing the Volt by driving it through 3 foot deep water to make sure nothing went wrong and the door seals didn't leak before I bought mine, which I love.
Over one year - 182 mpg bitchez. Charged off solar power (mine) which has more than one use. As in I pay no power bill either. I must not have a clue how to manage money.
I think someone here at ZH must have a bunch of illiquid money tied to big oil. The bais against any non-oil-burning car here is so fierce - follow the money. Quarter million of them catch on fire a year, but no one mentions that, where one Volt has caught fire in a total-loss test (they drain the gasoline from gas cars before doing the same test, but weren't competant to run down the Volt battery in the same test - so is it the Volt, or the stupidity of NHSTA?).
I like your comment. Have been wanting to do that myself. The best thing for me would be a squirrel cage wind turbine on the roof of the house and be able to use the ev car battery as a backup power source for the house. So far I haven't but maybe someday.
There are threads on my forum under alt energy that show how you can use the very efficient Volt generator to back up your house (or have nice electricity for wild parties far from other power).
www.coultersmithing.com/forums
Note, as with any "bet the company car", these probably are going to go *down* in quality as time goes on to improve the bottom line (and when the electric caddilac comes out), so look for a 2012 coming off lease.
As to those who complain about the subsidies ALL car manufaturers got - but only some made electric cars that work with (Fiskar being one of the failures, due to A123's lack of QC) - you paid anyway, so why should I not get the car instead of letting your (and my) money go completely to waste?
Cut off your nose to spite your face much? Or just pushing for a self-fulfilling prophecy?
"www.coultersmithing.com/forums"
Ooooh nice! Thanks for that. Relevant to my interests.
For eg: http://everist.org/pics/hp_racks/
I'd like to have a chat about your username too sometime.
Edit later: Hmm. Your forum has registrations disabled. [And, took stupid me a while to find your contact details. Also, text strikeout markup doesn't work here at ZH.]
One comment - you wonder about the motive behind the mystery bot registrations? Did you consider the result they produced (you killed the registration facility) might have been the motive? You're not thinking paranoid enough.
Speaking for myself, I think these kind of cars are a great idea. Its the subsidy that bothers me. Subsidies are inherently bad and they cause all sorts of bad things to happen. In fact, a 'good thing' the subsidy you got when you bought your volt means that the rest of us have to pay for your car. I don't blame you for taking advantage of the subsidy, I blame the government for giving the rest of us a shitty deal so that others could get a good one.
And before you say I could just up and buy a volt, know that I don't live in the states, so I cannot. Instead, I'm stuck with just the bill (taxpaying sucker(citizen)).
Do you have any idea the subsidy that big oil gets? OMFG.
I'm well aware of those subsidies. Also equally shitty.
If oil was a free market without the usa military overthrowing or backing up tyrants it would cost a freaking thousand dollars a barrel. You should thank Volt drivers not criticize or ridicule them as zh is wont to do. I think zh's stance on EVs sux ass.
I disagree with that statement, as if the military wasn't busy blowing up countries, we wouldn't be paying to fill up all those bombers, fighters, drones, tanks, and ships' tanks. We'd also have a lot more friends around which would avoid a lot of the problems we have today.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that because we blow up all those who don't trade in dollars that things are actually cheaper as a result. There's plenty more costs than just money. As we'll all find out soon enough.
Good point. However, the usa military comprises only a small amount of overall usa consumption. I think it is single digit percentage-wise.
edit: after some research the DoD uses approx. 140 million barrels per year. The usa burns roughly 7 billion barrels per year. If my figures are correct that is in the 2% range.
That sounds about right, but its not just the direct cost of the oil. If you want to nail down the cost of protecting the petrodollar, you have to include the total cost of military expenditures in the mideast.
Agreed.
That, and also that by now most people around the world badly want to see the USA (gov & mil) faceplant in a pile of broken glass.There's a cost to creating such antipathy.
And you never know when someone might come up with a way to make it happen sooner, rather than the inevitable (but when?) self-inflicted social systems crash the USA elites are trying so hard to achieve.
Why are you personalizing this? ZH does nothing more than point out that the math isn't adding up on EV's- sorry you don't like the numbers, but they speak for themselves......
And I even own an Escalade hybrid- I like the sweet torque from the electric motor, but it's certainly no panacea- it's always about the tradeoffs......
"The U.S. Department of Defense budget accounted in fiscal year 2010 for about 19% of the United States federal budgeted expenditures and 28% of estimated tax revenues. Including non-DOD expenditures, military spending was approximately 28–38% of budgeted expenditures and 42–57% of estimated tax revenues. According to the Congressional Budget Office, defense spending grew 9% annually on average from fiscal year 2000–2009."
That's about 4% of GDP. It's also about 40% of defense spending for the entire WORLD.
I'm sorry but I don't get your point. The numbers don't add up? What numbers? So we have to wait until there is an oil shortage before we look at alternatives? A smooth transition is not something to be desired? If any numbers don't add up it is the seven billion barrels of oil the usa consumes not that evs don't get better mileage than gas hogs.
There are many ways to conserve oil, if that was really what people cared about. Skoda (now part of VAG) makes a car that gets 90+ MPG and is much more affordable than a hybrid, without (AFAIK) massive government subsidies. They are not for sale this side of the pond, due to a lack of demand (they would eat into the sales of the parent company's VW Golf / Jetta / Rabbit).
Absolutely.
There are many ways to conserve oil, if that was really what people cared about...
That is part of the problem right there. People ridicule this or that doesn't make sense because the cost analysis. Then they scream if you try to raise fuel taxes to reflect the actual cost of supplying it. It is circular logic that is total bullshit because they won't admit to the true cost of everything. If anything those who conserve are subsidising everyone else.
"Raising fuel taxes to reflect actual costs"?
What?
I don't know where to even begin with that....
Wow.
Do you really not understand what a tax is?
Do you understand even the premise of this board? Do you really not get this?
Taxes to support supply costs, of course- Obamanomics fully at work.....
Dude- you win, my head hurts.
We're truly fucked.
""Raising fuel taxes to reflect actual costs"?
What?
I don't know where to even begin with that....
Wow. "
Come on now. Surely there's some arbitrary fee we can tack onto the sale price to keep the sellers from selling below cost.
That same Military is by far the largest user of oil on the planet!
Make no mistake, we hate that subsidy too. ALL gov't subsidies need to end.
Ah yes, the solar power on your roof that is going to take you 15 years to pay for- then you'll be the super-cool dude with the 15 yr old Volt parked in front of your trailer....
How's that Kool-Aid tasting these days?
yeah, pv isn't the solution but at least they are trying. I drive a regular gas car but cut back on trips etc..
when it comes time to re-shingle, looks like a smart bet to use solar shingles like Dow's powerhouse ones. Then it isn't a 15year argument anymore
If it actually took 15 years to pay for itself, that would still work out to a 6.7% annual return on investment (non-compounding), assuming the price of electricity stays the same over the next 15 years. If you have a better investment gauranteed to return 6.7% plus inflation, please share.
Not that DC needs any defending, but he has a pretty slick setup.
More independent than most anyone here most likely, at least in terms of energy.
pods
Can we buy one for Jaime Dimon?
Explains their new logo.
I've heard of cars that are so hot that they are flying out of the lot. But not burning. Must be a new era.
Plus, if the dealers have their floorplan insured, it's a great way for the mfg. to channel stuff, then the cars burn, and the ins co's are left holding the bag. Kind of like the housing crisis--only with cars.
GM has started marketing higher risk, lower opportunity buyer (aka junk fucking) auto loan receivables again....
Your gubamint at work. :)
Sodium is a metal.
And in its pure form explodes when put in water. Watched it in high school chemistry class.
A car that burns under water? I want one. I mean think of the collector's value in a few years time.
Someone took the option of having "heated seats" a bit too far.
I like that feature - they look so hot.
A 100% magnesium car would be sooooo much cooler.
Ha Ha Haaaa...fuck yeah!!
oh wait, those are my tax dollars!...fuck!
The Keynesian multiplier working overtime.
Call that hairy carpet monkey Janet Napiltano, These things are Det Cord on wheels.
That's 16 Fiskers destroyed at the Port of Newark. I recognize a number of BMWs as well. How many cars are we talking in total? Just new cars in the ports and dealer parking lots. Plus the cars already on the roads.
What is the replacement cost of the vehicles alone and is that covered by insurance?
On a brighter note, Fisker Karma just improved car-dealers channel stuffing statistics...
Or will they get disaster relief from the federal government?
""That's 16 Fiskers destroyed at the Port of Newark."
Well that takes care of this year's production run. Maybe the FedGov will come through with a better subsidy next year so they don't actually have to produce the cars.
So how much of my tax dollars have gone to this "green" company?
$528 million. Look it up it's a real pisser.
..thats another thing you should never do in an electric car, please hold your water
AAAANNDD the Tesla Model S wins Automobile of the Year from the car mags.
I'm sure that wasn't bought and paid for by Tesla majority shareholders :)
And here in Europe: (http://www.caroftheyear.org/)
Car of the Year 2011 - Nissan Leaf
Car of the Year 2012 - Chevrolet Volt
But isn't it strange that you can go a whole year and not see a single one of them on the roads? (rhetorical question)
It's because of the damned extension cords --- mine never seems to be long enough.
To be fair, maybe one caught fire and set fire to the rest.
Most likely not, but maybe since there are a few sitting there unburnt.
How would the fire spread when they are all submerged? Each one of those babies lit up from the inside. It would have been even more ironic if it was their other model, the "Fisker Surf".
"How would the fire spread when they are all submerged? Each one of those babies lit up from the inside. It would have been even more ironic if it was their other model, the "Fisker Surf"."u
There you go with those negative waves again. When you started thinking the first one shorted out the rest self-imolated. They were doing good until then.
The car, the car, the car is on fire! We don't need no water let the motherfucker burn, burn motherfucker, burn!
If Ted & Mary Jo were in the Karma they could have roasted marshmallows !
You can't make this madness up!
So driving through some low area with or large potholes will set this thing ablazing? Wow.
I know a guy who claims to have one on back order. I guess now it might be back, back, back, back, back...order.
All this channel stuffing, 640 hp cars, 90k Suv's, wet cars burning, Ford closings, 0% financing, 140% LTV Honda financing,
new 84 month programs, model recalls before the model is released, jimmied up car reviews and ratings, what in the hell
do you buy?
I wonder if heavy rain or having snow melt on it is a risk?
I like how the Dodge is parked one empty parking space away from the Fiskers.
Buy a couple year old, well tested model (including new updates of older models).
The simpler the better. Then get yourself a Haynes manual and do the upkeep yourself.
Save money, hone mechanical skills, and you learn what a car is actually for.
Oh, and Rockauto.com sends you a magnet with every order! (shameless plug I know, but they rock)
pods
Sure smells like lithium oxide and insurance scam in here
Bah thats nuttin, Renault Fluence, dont ad water, just plug in...and its gone!
http://ing.dk/modules/xphoto/cache/68/70968_650_550_0_0_0_0.jpg
Probably took quite a bit of effort for Fisker to gather all those cars together and have them in position before the storm arrived. Now they have a new feature to brag about. Karma - the electric car you will never be killed by drowning in!
Let's rev one of those suckers up to 88 and send it back so Teddy Kennedy can take Mary Jo for a spin.
Is it pronounced fizz-car?
Someone needs to hit CNTRL - ALT - DEL soon. I'd do it, but I'm too busy shopping for firearms.
The local gun shops and shooting ranges are flooded with people and money. It's been like holiday shopping every day for years now.
Firearms and jury trials are what separates us from the "barbarians".
Never drive one of these cars in the rain lol.
Something tells me the next model will have some kinda water-proof battery pack with a water-proof switching system that turns off when submerged.
Using Krugman's Logic, Everybody should own one of these babies....
They just need to change the name from Karma to Stimulus!
That is not very enviromentaly friendly burning down like that...shouldn´t they recycle themselves or something
Ralph Nader - Unsafe at any depth!
Ray Bradbury - Fisker 451
Jules LaVerne - 20,000 degrees under the sea.
Don't even think about washing this car or driving in heavy rain...
We have "boats that go underwater"; maybe we should start working on cars?
Couldn't they just have gotten the engineering drawings form Russia for the Lada or Trabant and spruced it up a bit?
CBS New York station trying hard to censor everyone. Reporter in helicopter said it will take days..weeks...months..ye......They cut him off before he could say years. Then the station asked for people to donate to red cross because the station and red cross are teaming up together. At that point they went to a reporter on the street who interviewed a former fire fighter who said WHere is the red cross? THey pulled camera off him immediately.
Fisker will end up in the Guiness Book or Records as the only car company laughed out of business.
NY city official said yesterday that subways would be open in 4 days. Really? Do they understand reality? Anyone who has had a flooded basement knows it takes weeks or months to fix. Imagine a subway system. Maybe put some Fiskers in the subway...FIRE IN THE HOLE. Fisker the official car of the New York Marathon 2012.
They should have kept the Fisker problems quiet and given a few to every world leader 'Bama doesn't like. It would save our country a fortune.
Memo: To all posters,
Many thanks for more laughs I've had in a day since the real minutes of the last FED meeting!
Hmm, the anti-thermal-runaway circuit needs some work. That plus a depth rating.
My Karma ran over your Dogma.
I never heard of this ever happening to the electric trolley car system we used have in our cities before they were trashed at the behest of GM. As a matter of fact the trolleys were perfectly good and had they been allowed to continue they could have been scaled up to extend to the suburbs of our metropolitan areas.
That's some serious heat. Looks suspiciously like bad battery chemisty to me. I thought those vehicle bats were supposted to have inherent safety in their design so they didn't explode like the little ones that you use in electronic equipment do. Did somebody lie about that. Nooo, who would do such a thing?
Officer, I'd like to report a stolen car.
What's the make and model?
Fisker Karma.
Was there a black stain in your parking space that wasn't there when you arrived?
Yes officer.
It wasn't stolen maam, it just evaporated.
Come on guys, this is just a good old fashion combustion engine...what's the big deal.
To be fair, few electrical systems will survive salt water ingress without some drama. Other than say, submarines, but these are cars not submersibles.
I'd guess the fire was due to discharge of the battery energy through salt-sodden electrical parts, rather than the batteries themselves reacting to saltwater. The batteries would be sealed units. Until they caught fire and exploded too, of course.
Also, the vehicles were not 'submerged'. They are all still sitting in their original parked positions, as opposed to washed/floated around the area. Water probably just rose to a bit above the floorpan, but not enough to push them around. Lesson: avoid shallow creek crossings in electric hybrids.
That said, a $100,000 car is in no way 'green'.
2 Li(s) + 2 H2O -> 2 LiOH (aq) + H2(g)
This is the expected result when immersing a Lithium battery in water. It is pretty difficult to protect lithium cells from this problem unless they are built specifically to be submerged. I am very curious about what would happen to a Volt under this exact circumstance. Anyone have any relevant experience?