If you have any Christmas chestnuts you still need to roast over an open fire, you’ll be glad to know you don’t have to wait for a nearby Chevy Volt to catch fire. The Fisker Karma will do nicely as well. The Hill reports that Fisker is recalling 239 vehicles, which is a pretty massive recall by electric-car standards:
The Transportation Department’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Thursday that the company, Fisker Automotive, will recall its Karma vehicles made between July 1, 2011, and Nov. 3, 2011, because of a faulty electric battery component that could cause a fire.
“Within the high-voltage battery, certain hose clamps may have been positioned incorrectly during assembly. If positioned incorrectly, the batter compartment cover could interfere with the hose clamps, potentially causing a coolant leak from the cooling hose,” NHTSA said in its recall notice Thursday.
“If coolant enters the battery compartment, an electrical short could occur possibly resulting in a fire.”
Fisker Karmas cost about $100,000 apiece at retail. You’d expect a bit better than “certain hose clamps may have been positioned incorrect during assembly” for that kind of dough.
This boutique high-end fireball is one of the Obama Administration’s big “green energy” success stories, subsidized with a sweetheart loan of $529 million of your money. This created or saved plenty of jobs in Finland, where the automobiles are made, because the company “could not find a contractor in America to manufacture them.” But they were developed in the United States, and $359 million of that sweet taxpayer swag was intended to support a different Fisker car called the Nina, which only costs $60,000, may burst into flames less often, and will be manufactured at “a shuttered General Motors plant in Delaware,” so it’s all good.
There are unconfirmed rumors that Fisker is working on a new and improved vehicle named after its benefactor, Barack Obama. It will be a $500,000 golf cart that always remains cool and detached.
