For those of you who follow the green car industry, you may have heard that hybrid startup Fisker Automotive is basically in bankruptcy. Despite being a gorgeous car, the Fisker Karma suffered from subcompact interior room, poor performance, worse gas mileage, and an expensive plug-in hybrid drivetrain. It was pretty much doomed to fail.
Which is a real shame, because the Fisker looks great. But what will the hundreds of Karma owners do now that the company that built their expensive car is going belly-up? According to Wards Auto, at least a hundred Fisker Karma owners have approached VL Productions to replace their hybrid drivetrain with a 556 horsepower LSA engine.
The VL Productions Destino was originally intended to be a niche within a niche, a vehicle for people who didn’t mind doubling the price of their already-expensive plug-in hybrid and completely negating any environmental benefits the car may have. With the curtain about to fall on Fisker Automotive, however, there has been a renewed interest from Karma owners in the Destino conversion.
Why? Well for one thing, almost nobody who bought a Fisker Karma did it for green credibility. While the 35-mile EV range is on par with other plug-in hybrids, like the Chevy Volt, when the battery ran out the Fisker got just 20 MPG, mostly because it was a 5,000 pound vehicle. With Fisker circling the drain though, there won’t be any service technicians to troubleshoot or repair problems with the complicated hybrid drivetrain.
So believe it or not, converting to a 556 horsepower LSA engine would actually simplify this car, and make it faster and lighter too. The Destino had been slated to get the 638 horsepower LS9 engine, but many buyers wanted an automatic, which is unavailable in a turn-key form with the Corvette ZR1 engine. According to Bob Lutz, who is working with VL Productions, there have been hundreds of inquiries, and over 100 orders. Doesn’t sound like a lot until you consider that the conversion costs $85,000 to $90,000 on top of the cost of an actual Fisker, and only about 2,000 of the hybrids were even built in the first place.