A what?! We normally don’t show 2012 vehicles here on Barn Finds, especially ones that haven’t been in a barn for 14 years, but I blame it on Chuck F for sending in this unusual tip! This 2012 Fisker Karma EcoSport plug-in hybrid is listed here on Facebook Marketplace in Gulf Breeze, Florida, and they’re asking $17,000. Here is the original listing, and thanks to Chuck F. for the tip!
Sleek, slick, and chic. There was actually a trim level called EcoChic, the top trim level above EcoStandard and EcoSport, which this one is. You will have a very hard time drawing more stares driving almost anywhere in a Fisker Karma EcoAnything, no matter the trim level. This is one very cool design. Maybe not the oddly-smiling front “grille,” but man, this car is sexy. The biggest factory wheels I’ve ever had were on my Porsche Cayenne Turbo, and those were 21-inchers; these are 22s. “Shadow” or “Earth” is the color here, I think, according to page 14 of this very cool 2012 Fisker Karma brochure. This car is only 16.4 feet long, so it isn’t huge, but it has a huge presence.
I can’t help seeing a different shade on the trunk lid, but there’s no mention of it having been repainted. The original Fisker Karma was only made for a couple of years, 2011 and 2012, but things are more than a little murky. They weren’t a traditional EV like a Tesla or other 100% electric/battery-powered vehicles. Think Chevrolet Volt (or Cadillac ELR), where it’s an EV but with a gas-powered engine providing backup power to charge the batteries, so a plug-in hybrid with a range-extending engine. I think it’s an interesting system. I know a few people with Chevy Bolts, and they swear by them, not swear at them, as more than a few Fisker Karma owners have done. Fisker is a Finnish company, so that just adds to the unusual factor. I mean, come on, Justin Bieber has a Fisker Karma! (crickets)
How’s that for an unusual interior? Here are the gauges. This is strictly a four-seater, with four bucket seats. Watch your skull as you crouch down and attempt to get in, as 374 onlookers are watching. Try to look as cool and smooth as the car looks, and you’ll be fine. The company went bust for the most part not long after this car was made, due to, yes, the batteries. A123 Systems was a company that provided the batteries, and the Karma had a couple of recalls regarding the batteries. Fisker didn’t help matters by not selling as many cars as they predicted, which in turn added to 123’s downfall. Both A123 Systems and Fisker are somehow still in business, however, in some form. Fisker has come and gone several times, and in 2012, they referred to the Karma as “The World’s First High Performance Electric Luxury Vehicle With The Freedom To Plug In Or Fill Up.”
We don’t get to see inside the trunk or any underside shots, but kudos to the seller for providing two engine photos! An engine in an EV?! Remember, this isn’t an “EV”, it’s a plug-in extended-range vehicle with a gas-powered engine providing power to charge the lithium-ion 10.1 kWh batteries once the plug-in range of around 40 miles is used up, for about a 300-mile total range. The engine is GM’s 2.0-liter Ecotec turbo inline-four with 260 pounds mixing with the two 120-kW electric motors and batteries, making just over 400 horsepower and a mind-blowing 1,000 lb-ft of torque rolling through a “Rear Differential Module and two rear-mounted electric traction motors” (according to Motor Trend), with paddle shifters, to the rear wheels. The EPA gave it a 20-mpg overall rating after the plug-in charge is gone, so it’s probably less efficient overall than your new F-150.
The Fisker Karma weighs a whopping 5,300 pounds but can still make it to 60 MPH in around 6 seconds. This car was a bit over $100,000 in 2012, much more than a Chevy Volt, so $17,000 or offer seems like a steal today, if you can live with some possible iffy electrical issues and other things. The seller says the software has been updated to the current version, so that’s good, right? Personally, I think this would be a super fun car to own for just driving around town on the weekends. You would almost always have rock star parking, and you can’t say that about many other $17,000 cars. Have any of you heard of a Fisker Karma?
I totally forgot about these. It is a unique and good looking design. This was not a vehicle you’d normally see in a Walmart parking lot. Whether you like them or you hate them. EVs are here and one day will get to the age of being collectable. That is, if the batteries hold up. This has a lot of different styling cues that remind me of several other makes, and that’s not a bad thing. I’m wondering if it will sell? It looks like its in great shape and it would be nice to see it preserved.
I’ve read this design originated as Henrik Fisker’s best proposal for the first Tesla sedan, which he liked so much that he decided to withhold it and try producing it himself, instead offering his second-best proposal to Tesla, which they declined in favor of Franz von Holzhausen’s competing proposal for what became the Model S.
If so, it’s incredibly poetic that he also decided to name his model the Karma, considering how all that ultimately turned out for him.
Fisker is an interesting dude. He keeps resurfacing.
I think Hurricane Sandy might’ve been the final nail for them. I did see one of these in-person and they’re quite stunning.
https://www.reuters.com/article/business/environment/fisker-says-30-million-in-luxury-cars-destroyed-by-sandy-in-nj-port-idUSBRE8A6039/
My in-laws lived in Newport Beach CA and when we went to visit them on Sundays we would pass a Fisker Karma parked outside a driveway with the charger plugged into the garage. The license plate said “Fisker” and rumor had it the owner was a dealer (or maybe even Henrik himself), but the car eventually disappeared. The cars were $100K plus or minus so not for everyone.
Fisker received a US$528.7 million conditional loan in September 2009 from the Department of Energy’s US$25 billion Advanced Technologies Vehicle Manufacturing Loan Program (ATVM) and over $1 billion from private investors between 2009-2012 but filed for bankruptcy at the end of 2012.
A Chinese company bought it in 2014 and the Revero (based in Irvine CA and built in Moreno Valley CA) debuted in 2016 but all cars were recalled in 2019 and most of the employees let go in 2020. Henrik tried it again as Fisker Inc. in 2020 with the Ocean (released in 2023) but in early 2024 got into severe financial difficulties and filed for bankruptcy again. There are Fiskers for sale out there but one would think parts and service would probably be hard to come by.
I was surprised at the low price on this,as these were not
cheap when new.There was a celebrity (Tom Cotter?) who had
one of these.
It’s the cost and risk of ownership that is baked into the price here. These are gorgeous vehicles and mechanically a great concept. But as somebody pointed out, finding parts and service would be difficult, and they’re not known as being particularly reliable.
Its power train was based on the Chevy Volt’s hybrid system….not the Bolt. The Bolt is all electric.
The biggest problem with owning one of these – and they are a very attractive car – is that aftermarket support and supporting repair documentation is sparse.
Heard this spot on public radio the other day about the Fisker Owners Association trying to acquire the intellectual property for their cars, so they can finally service and upgrade them properly:
https://www.marketplace.org/story/2026/03/10/who-makes-car-repairs-if-the-maker-went-bankrupt
YES!! Sorry about that, Yankeetr5 and everyone. The Volt, not the Bolt, dang. Thanks for catching that!
Being that it is not on fire i guess it is a fair deal, the seller does not have the greatest feedback, even for FB.
Has there ever been a prettier 4 door ?
Stunning cars ,they sell for 16 to $30k over at BaT ,this is the correct range with 28,000 miles and the top trim level .I will probably try one at some point (when I confirm someone local to maintain it ).
Around the time of that first collapse, Bo Lutz was starting up a company with investors that would buy up rolling bodies and refit the car with various level Corvette engines. I never heard what became of that. Beautiful car.
I patrolled Port Newark at the time and gawked as they were brought in. I was drawn by their styling. The nose reminded of the Cheetah kit car.
The 300 Fisker Karmas were parked in a large lot together, just off Port Street in Newark. They were there for days, and for those days, I’d have my lunch in my patrol car parked facing the bunch. I even joked to one of my colleagues that they were the safest group of cars in the port.
Despite the extra security my lunch hour provided, they were all lost, consumed by at least 4 feet of water when Hurricane Sandy hit us and caused the Newark bay to swell and cover nearly the entire port. Oddly, the salt water caused only some to burn, but not all.
A few weeks after the flood waters receded, I returned to the lot and wondered what would become of them. One day, a large orange “X” appeared on each of their windshields. Days later, I watched as each of those beautiful cars was lifted, placed into a crusher, flattened, then stacked onto trailers, and hauled away.
Not a single one was mine. Notwithstanding, I was bummed to see them meet such an end. I understood that once FEMA was involved, there was no longer any possibility of them being rebuilt or otherwise being sold to the public.
If I remember correctly, their MSRP’s were in the $109k range each.
Multiplied by 300, Sandy devoured roughly $32 million worth of Fiskers. It was a rough start for them.
Those 300 cars were only a small dent in the 16,000 total number of vehicles totaled by Hurricane Sandy, just within the port.
I’ve always maintained an interest in this car. At $17k, I may have even been a buyer for the one in the ad but It’s gone now and I assume someone else is the lucky owner.
Maybe next time.
Back when I had an RJ (real job) we went to lunch at a local restaurant in Belmont CA and there was a Fisker parked out front! We found out that it was owned by one of the local tech investor types and it was pretty cool looking. Henrik Fisker carried his design work on the BMW Z8 to this Fisker front grill and also had a hand in designing my first SUV, I mean SAV, the BMW X5. There’s also a Fisker Ocean, or maybe more than one that are around the same neighborhood. That “neighborhood” is also just a few miles from the first offices of another car mfgr…Tesla.
A family member acquired a new PHEV(?) SUV, a Hyundai, a year or two ago. It’s a pretty neat, the battery is quite small, but large enough that his longest, commonly-driven trip can be made using pure electric power. Charges it with a standard outlet, says he has to force himself to run the engine from time to time, because he’s concerned about the gas going bad in his tank LOL.
Personally, I think I favour either pure ICE or pure EV, but the hybrid models do seem to work well.
https://www.youtube.com/@RichRebuilds has a great episode about Fisker.
Moral of the story – probably not worth it.
All I can say is that my knees hurt just looking at this thing and I’m only 26.
Range is very important in a EV just as important is how long it takes to charge the batteries You can’t take a long trip without knowing if there are charging stations along the way When they can charge in ten minutes or less they will become much more popular People don’t want wait 2 hours if they need to go anywhere
This isn’t an EV, 1980flh1200, it’s a hybrid with a range-extending gas-powered engine. Once the 30-mile plug-in battery power is gone, the four-cylinder engine starts to keep the batteries charged and the car going. As with any hybrid, just find the nearest gas station and you’re on your way.
Curious thing about series-hybrids like this and the Volt (not to mention diesel-electric locomotives): they have motors that aren’t engines and engines that aren’t motors.
The engine, defined as converting fuel into mechanical work, only serves as a generator without mechanically applying that work as motive power to the wheels. The motors, defined as imparting motive power to move the vehicle, are electric and don’t directly consume any fuel.
I’ll say it… rip everything out and drop an LS in it :-)
In this case-For Sure…. this is an incredibly sexy shaped car, it deserves a nice engine, I always thought a V12 ala Ferrari/Lamborghini was what it deserved ….
If Snidley Whiplash were a car…………..
I saw a Fisker when we lived on an island in SW Florida. It was stunning in the crosswalk and someone remarked that it belonged to Bob Lutz!
Bob Lutz removed the hybrid stuff and put a corvette engine in it. Called it the Destino
https://www.lsxmag.com/news/out-with-the-batteries-the-fisker-karma-now-rocks-a-corvette-motor/
Ha, I love it! You and Rick may be onto something. I just love the looks; I don’t need the hybrid drivetrain.
I love it too! I wonder how many were actually produced.