Never heard of a Fisker Karma before? That’s because it’s a new startup company, and their cars haven’t hit the road yet. It is a luxury sedan, with a price tag close to $90,000. Doable by the rich, and with only its very first model coming out next year, bound to decrease in price as the Earth revolves around the Sun a few more times, as it is prone to do.
These cars, which run on electricity for the first few miles (50 in the case of the Karma) including the Chevy Volt (which goes for 40 miles on battery), are not actually being called hybrids, since they run on electricity entirely at first, and then gasoline powered electricity when the battery runs out. So since they’re slightly different and the government loves confusing people, they’re getting the more government-sounding phraseology of “extended range electric vehicles.” Whatever you say, Uncle Sam.
The best thing about this extended range electric vehicular car is that it only emits 83 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer, which is even less than the newest Toyota Prius.
Theoretically, a driver of the Fisker Karma could get to work in back without using any gas at all, assuming his round trip is less than 50 miles. This would upgrade its rated 67mpg to…infinity.
I remember one time in high school when the transmission for my 1990 Ford Taurus station wagon broke when I accidentally slammed on the gas and breaks at the same time. Since it was an automatic, I wasn’t really conscious of the fact that there even was a transmission, so when it broke, I found out what it actually did, which is connect the engine to the wheels via a series of gears. (Now that I drive a stick shift, I am intimately aware of the existence and function of transmissions.) I told my friend at the time my transmission broke that someone should invent a car that “just goes” so that you wouldn’t need a transmission and gear shifting and whatnot. He told me that I should invent the “just goes” car. He was being sarcastic.
Well, I am happy to report that the Fisker Karma actually IS a “just goes” car, and has no transmission that connects the engine to the wheels. The more power you pump from the battery, the faster the wheels spin. That’s it. This obviously cuts down on energy use because you don’t need an engine to spin gears to spin a drive train to spin wheels. You just have the engine spin the wheels, and cut out the middlemen.
I wonder what happens to the RPM meter then…
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