Detroit Show: Fisker's electric dream

At what point do the great and good find themselves biting off more than they can chew?

The specialist car industry is littered with the corpses of companies created by seemingly smart people with clever car designs, bright ambitions and good intentions, but which crashed into the financial barriers of much longer and more expensive development than ever envisaged, or spiralling manufacturing costs, or a dozen other unsought complications. Remember former Ford of Europe chairman Jim Capolongo and his four senior Ford colleagues whose project to revive Ecosse vanished without trace? Or the former Rolls-Royce chief executive who fronted up the non-resurrection of Healey?

Henrik Fisker still has all to play for, and if the former senior BMW designer and Aston Martin design chief succeeds with his plans to sell 15,000 units a year, starting in the fourth quarter of 2009, of an $80,000 (£40,000) luxury high-performance plug-in hybrid then more than his investors will congratulate him.

It looks a big mountain to climb for California-based Fisker Automotive – the company he formed in 2005 after leaving Aston – and Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies, its partner. The Karma, as the car has been aptly named, looks and appears perfectly suited to rich yet ‘green’ consumers. Fisker has penned it, so, as you would expect, it is as good looking a four-door GT coupe as anyone could wish for. Yet it is claimed to be capable of running for 50 miles powered only by what is believed to be a lithium-ion battery pack (as yet unconfirmed by Fisker) and rechargeable overnight from a standard household power socket.

For most users, most days, that will suffice, says Fisker. But go beyond that and the batteries will be charged by a small but efficient four-cylinder petrol engine. And by the way, the Karma will scorch from 0-60mph in 5.8sec and go on to a top speed of 125mph.

Even as the Karma was being unveiled, bigwigs over at the GM and Toyota stands were explaining why it’s going to take until 2010 to get their far more modestly performing plug-in hybrids on the road…