Posted on 08/20/2012 8:02:10 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
After the second of two mysterious fires in a Karma sedan, the government-backed electric car-maker Fisker has initiated a voluntary recall of its luxury vehicles.
In a statement, Fisker spokesman Roger Ormisher said that Fisker engineers and an independent fire expert had "identified the root cause" of a fire that swept through a Karma parked outside a Woodside, California grocery store on August 10.
"The investigation located the ignition source to the left front of the Karma, forward of the wheel, where the low-temperature cooling fan is located," said the statement. "The final conclusion was that this sealed component had an internal fault that caused it to fail, overheat and start a slow burning fire."
Fisker announced a voluntary recall "with respect to this cooling fan unit" and said it had already contacted its retailers.
As first reported by Jalopnik.com, the owner found the vehicle burning in the parking lot when he returned from shopping. At the time, the Woodside Fire Department said the immediate cause of the blaze appeared to be "heat from powered equipment," and firefighters cut the car's battery cable after putting out the fire. Woodside Fire Chief Dan Ghiorso told ABC News that the origin of the fire appeared to be inside the engine compartment, though Fisker said in a statement that it was determined to be outside the compartment in an area "forward of the driver's side front tire."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
What a $100,000 dollar POS
Voltswagon! LOL!
Lotsa bad Karma lately.
This is one of my biggest problems with the electric car (and I suspect why the EV-1 rental fleet was recalled and destroyed).
These vehicles are more like a space shuttle than, say, a ‘69 Camaro. What I mean by that is that they are very complex, and alot of stuff has to go Right...or they may catch on fire.
What on earth is going to happen, as the electrical vehicle fleet ages? Some of these ‘sealed compartments’ might start leaking on the entire fleet.
Electric vehicles should be left as toys for the uber rich...they can afford to maintain them, in the same manner one might maintain a private aircraft. Anything less than that will ultimately result in more fires.
“firefighters cut the car’s battery cable after putting out the fire?”
Yes, and I would also do so on a hybrid or an EV unless it was a battery fire in which case it would be lots of water and stand way back waiting for detonation.
I am a lot more leery of EV/hybrid fires than 50 gallons of gasoline in a fully involved Suburban.
Isn’t Fisker one of Algore’s gigs?
Karma on fire!
It was not a hybrid.
Instant Karma’s gonna get you...
karma...the name alone...will-not-make jokes.
Wow, who would hate to return to their car and see THAT.
Are the affected owners going to get new cars and houses that burned down?
That isn’t why the EV-1’s were taken back. They were not recalled. The people who wnet into that program never actually owned them, they were loaned to them with the expectation GM would take them back. People driving them begged to buy them when they were told GM was going to demolish them.
And they didn’t have the problems these newer cars have, they were using regular lead acid batteries and less technical, technology.
Everyone I have ever read about who participated in the EV-1 study really liked the cars and had overall very good things to say about them. They were pretty small for their time and perhaps GM didn’t think they’d sell because of that. Also given there wasn’t huge general popular demand for alternatives and even less charging stations around in case you did need a boost.
Another Obamamobile goes up in smoke!!
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