Should I buy one?

5624 Views 20 Replies 16 Participants Last post by Fabulist, Mar 2, 2012

mp99e99

Discussion Starter · Mar 1, 2012

Hi,

I'm close to buying a Karma. I'm thinking either Eclipse or Inferno with the Canyon Tritone interior if anyone has one and wants to give an opinion.

My questions are:

a) If you could buy one today, would you do it again? Ie if those that had pre-ordered, would you buy the car again?

b) Anyone get anything off sticker or is it pretty much MSRP and up @ this point?

c) Any suggestions/warnings/kudos that are different about this car versus traditional cars?

d) are they still producing cars or did that stop only affect the Nina production? Ie if I want to do a color/interior that isn't in stock or on any dealer lot can I have one still made?

e) how stable is fisker, it looks like the new CEO is saying Fisker is profitable next year, but I can't tell how the Nina/DOE loan affect Fisker.

f) how does the $7500 tax credit work in the USA? Can I get it on my 2011 taxes or do I have to wait until next year?

This is a daily driver, and I need reliability and not alot of headaches. I can deal with some of the quirks but if anyone is having problems using it as a daily driver I would like to know.

Thanks for your help. I'm pretty close but its scary because its a lot of money for me and I'm taking a risk on first version/new car company/new technology all at once.

I need a new car and I could go for MB/BMW/Lexus route but they are boring and I want something new and exciting to inspire me. [But I dont want a ton of headaches/I am busy have a life to live]

I also know the new firmware is coming out end of this month that is supposed to address a lot of the issues on the board.

Thanks!

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1 - 20 of 21 Posts

kabalah70

· #2 · Mar 1, 2012

a) Yes
b) MSRP, but it was actually a set price four years ago. (Sig. Ed.)
c) Be patient
d) Stop only affected Project Nina
e) too complicated to answer in a small space, suggest you read the whoel forum
f) You get to claim it for the tax year you bought it, which means I will have to wait over a year to see the $7500 because I paid for it in January of 2012, which means I will get it with my 2012 tax refund in about February or March of 2013.

If you can't deal with headaches, this is not the car for you at this time. Maybe as the software improves. It also depends on how patient you can be with following start-up procedures to help prevent bugs.

dennis

· #3 · Mar 1, 2012

a) Yes
b) MSRP. If you buy one from dealer stock, you may be able to get a car they ordered before the 1/15/12 price increase and save yourself about $8000.
c) The electric car acceleration profile is different from ICE cars.
d) They are producing 25 Karmas per day.
e) They put $110M in the bank in December and have a fairly broad range of investors. So for a startup, they are relatively stable. Bringing in Tom Lasorda from Chrysler as CEO and Richard Beattie from Ford/Jaguar to head sales/distribution has added management strength and car industry experience.

There are two caveats:
1) Being a plug-in hybrid and weighing 5300 lbs., the car is not as fast as it looks. Plenty fast enough, but if you are expecting $100K ICE car performance (e.g. BMW M5, Audi S6, etc.) you will be disappointed.

2) There are software glitches in the electronics. The hybrid drivetrain is solid, but the dash and command center have issues. If you are careful to do one thing at a time, you can avoid most of them. Fisker is releasing software updates monthly, and is gradually fixing the problems. I have 1500 miles on my Karma, and love it, even with the lingering software problems.

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Fabulist

· #4 · Mar 1, 2012

dennis said:
a) Yes
b) MSRP. If you buy one from dealer stock, you may be able to get a car they ordered before the 1/15/12 price increase and save yourself about $8000.
c) The electric car acceleration profile is different from ICE cars.
d) They are producing 25 Karmas per day.
e) They put $110M in the bank in December and have a fairly broad range of investors. So for a startup, they are relatively stable. Bringing in Tom Lasorda from Chrysler as CEO and Richard Beattie from Ford/Jaguar to head sales/distribution has added management strength and car industry experience.

There are two caveats:
1) Being a plug-in hybrid and weighing 5300 lbs., the car is not as fast as it looks. Plenty fast enough, but if you are expecting $100K ICE car performance (e.g. BMW M5, Audi S6, etc.) you will be disappointed.

2) There are software glitches in the electronics. The hybrid drivetrain is solid, but the dash and command center have issues. If you are careful to do one thing at a time, you can avoid most of them. Fisker is releasing software updates monthly, and is gradually fixing the problems. I have 1500 miles on my Karma, and love it, even with the lingering software problems.

a) Yes, absolutely.
b - e) What Dennis and @Kab said.
Also agree with Dennis and @Kab's caveats.

LonePalmBJ

· #5 · Mar 1, 2012

mp99e99 said:
a) If you could buy one today, would you do it again? Ie if those that had pre-ordered, would you buy the car again?

b) Anyone get anything off sticker or is it pretty much MSRP and up @ this point?

c) Any suggestions/warnings/kudos that are different about this car versus traditional cars?

d) are they still producing cars or did that stop only affect the Nina production? Ie if I want to do a color/interior that isn't in stock or on any dealer lot can I have one still made?

e) how stable is fisker, it looks like the new CEO is saying Fisker is profitable next year, but I can't tell how the Nina/DOE loan affect Fisker.

f) how does the $7500 tax credit work in the USA? Can I get it on my 2011 taxes or do I have to wait until next year?

Here are my answers based on my experience:

a) Yes, absolutely. It's makes me the most excited I've ever been about owning a car. I only had to wait about 10 months from order to delivery, so I had it easy compared to some on this board. The only thing I might change is the interior choice - I went monotone but the tritone is really nice. I LOVE the Deep Ocean exterior.

b) MSRP. The only exception I've heard to this is someone who got a token $1000 off a demo model with 2000 miles on it.

c) It's a different kind of vehicle, and right now has some teething pains primarily around the software that controls the Command Center and the dashboard. There have been several updates, and several more are pending, but the car is not without it's quirks right now. Mine have been fairly minor (a persistent check engine light, and intermittent or one-off issues with the command center) but I've had no mechanical, performance or safety issues. Do yourself a favor and commit some time to reading the posts in the Fisker Karma forum on FiskerBuzz. There's a wealth of information at your fingertips. You might like this too, from forum member SiliconKiwi: www.myfiskerkarma.com

d) Still producing 20-25 per day according to reports. The loan issue only impacted the Nina which hasn't even been officially unveiled yet.

e) I have no specific knowledge, but I'm bullish on the company, and I think the appointment of LaSorda as CEO is a positive step.

f) It applies to the tax year in which you bought the car, so you can claim it on the following year's taxes. i.e. buy now and claim on the taxes you do in Q1 of 2013. That's the boat most of us are in; only a handful of customer cars were delivered in calendar year 2011

You may also like this thread:
Why I Bought a Fisker

This is my daily driver, and I also took it on an 1100 mile roadtrip already. I'm smitten. I say go for it.

Brent

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Cooper

· #6 · Mar 1, 2012

Mine comes at the end of the week. I hope to say yes.

ct-fiskerbuzz

· #7 · Mar 2, 2012

Note that while you have to wait until the end of the tax year to claim your $7500 credit, if you're paying taxes incrementally (via withholding or quarterly estimated payments) you can simply adjust your withholding / estimated-payments to spread that $7500 over the remainder of the current tax year.

For instance, suppose you normally earn $100,000 in dividends each year (and nothing else for this oversimplified example), which are taxed at the maximum of 15% (they wouldn't be if that were all you earned but again, example). You'd pay $15,000 on those, in four equal payments of $3750. [Edit: wait, aren't dividends 20%? assume I said "carried interest" instead ... anyway the point was to make the numbers trivial to work]

Now suppose you buy a Karma in July, after you've paid $7500 for Calendar Year 2012 (in April and June on your Form 1040-ES-es). You had expected to pay $15k for the entire year. Now you have a $7500 deduction, so you expect to pay a total of $7500 CY2012. You simply pay $0 in September and December on the two remaining Form 1040-ESes.

I have not yet run this by the accounting people, but I believe it is all legal and proper and won't get you (or me, in my case) in hot water.

(I'm expecting my Karma to arrive in June or July at this point, because I chose a difficult color....)

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mp99e99

Discussion Starter · #8 · Mar 2, 2012

ct-fiskerbuzz said:
Note that while you have to wait until the end of the tax year to claim your $7500 credit, if you're paying taxes incrementally (via withholding or quarterly estimated payments) you can simply adjust your withholding / estimated-payments to spread that $7500 over the remainder of the current tax year.

For instance, suppose you normally earn $100,000 in dividends each year (and nothing else for this oversimplified example), which are taxed at the maximum of 15% (they wouldn't be if that were all you earned but again, example). You'd pay $15,000 on those, in four equal payments of $3750.

Now suppose you buy a Karma in July, after you've paid $7500 for Calendar Year 2012 (in April and June on your Form 1040-ES-es). You had expected to pay $15k for the entire year. Now you have a $7500 deduction, so you expect to pay a total of $7500 CY2012. You simply pay $0 in September and December on the two remaining Form 1040-ESes.

I have not yet run this by the accounting people, but I believe it is all legal and proper and won't get you (or me, in my case) in hot water. (I'm expecting my Karma to arrive in June or July at this point, because I chose a difficult color....)

what is the difficult color(s)/combo you chose?

ferknuckle

· #9 · Mar 2, 2012

I waited 4 years for mine and built up my expectations pretty high. I can't wipe the smile off my face every time I get into it! I got the Earth outside and inside and I gotta say the interior is what gets the most compliments, I have never seen anything even close to it.

ct-fiskerbuzz

· #10 · Mar 2, 2012

mp99e99 said:
what is the difficult color(s)/combo you chose?

Like it says in the header, Laguna. Black sand monotone interior, though interior is not the hard part, it's the Laguna that's delayed—Fisker have announced that they're just going to hand-paint the 77 Laguna orders they already have, starting in April, and then assemble and deliver those and discontinue the color entirely.

If you want blue now, you'll have to go with Deep Ocean (which is still a great color, I just wanted the electric blue for the electric car!).

txam99

· #11 · Mar 2, 2012

I paid sticker, they wouldnt budge $1, i echo most everything the others here have said, fit & finish & drivetrain are spot on, electronics quirky but this seems to be getting fixed rapidly, each of my updates have helped & i only expect it to get better with time....i've owned many different cars, this car is just phenomenal to drive & i would lay down the $100+k again in a minute. If you truely want a daily driver, you're going to have to be patient with the electronics until they nail it all down, but the drive train has given me ZERO issues & it has PLENTY of power. Pressure from investors pushed them out of the gates early, but look at Henricks background & what he has accomplished in a short time, he's been a car guy all his life, not a silicone valley guy, he will get this right in time......life is short my friend, go for it.

Karma31

· #12 · Mar 2, 2012

Absolutely would not hesitate to buy one again. I haven't been this smitten by an automobile since my Ford GT and that's saying a lot.

Deep Ocean

· #13 · Mar 2, 2012

Heard from my dealer today that Deep Ocean color is being changed, very interesting since I love the color of our car. We'll need to get some clarification on whether it is indeed changing. Sounds like some of these colors are just driving the company crazy with the difficulty of painting them.

cbermudez8

· #14 · Mar 2, 2012

I absolutely love mine and would do it again.

- Fisker Karma EcoChic, Silverwind with Glacier interior

marcus

· #15 · Mar 2, 2012

Zero regrets and no problems as a daily driver. I know I would have been bored in another Porsche Audi or Benz.

Sigurd

· #16 · Mar 2, 2012

I love my Karma so much that I think I want to make it my daily driver. I think I'll finally sell my E500 and let my Karma get dirty.

SoCalGuy

· #17 · Mar 2, 2012

Deep Ocean said:
Heard from my dealer today that Deep Ocean color is being changed, very interesting since I love the color of our car. We'll need to get some clarification on whether it is indeed changing. Sounds like some of these colors are just driving the company crazy with the difficulty of painting them.

Did they say what exactly is changing with that color?

Sigurd

· #18 · Mar 2, 2012

SoCalGuy said:
Deep Ocean said:

Heard from my dealer today that Deep Ocean color is being changed, very interesting since I love the color of our car. We'll need to get some clarification on whether it is indeed changing. Sounds like some of these colors are just driving the company crazy with the difficulty of painting them.

Click to expand...

Did they say what exactly is changing with that color?

They're going more shallow to alleviate painter's "bends".

ct-fiskerbuzz

· #19 · Mar 2, 2012

Sigurd said:
They're going more shallow to alleviate painter's "bends".

Shallow Ocean?!

Also, it's not just depth, it's time-at-depth. But you sure get a lot more time at 30 feet (or 10 meters when diving in Europe) than you do at 120.

I'd suggest a dive computer but if it's programmed by Fisker's contractors, we'd all be in trouble!

kwsmith007

· #20 · Mar 2, 2012

I use mine as a daily driver of about 57 miles per day with a recharge at my office. I absolutely love the car. I've had the same minor software problems with the display and check engine light bla bla, but who cares. Here is my ultimate recommendation ... I'm probably going to by a second Fisker for my wife who drives a 1 year old Porsche Panamara Turbo, and loves the Fisker.

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