Electric Cars at the Portland Auto Show

I went to the Portland Auto Show (that's Portland Oregon) to check out the electric cars. In particular, I wanted to see the Fisker Karma. The Karma was shown on the cover of the Portland Auto Show magazine. It is great to see an electric car get such publicity.

The star of the show. The Fisker Karma:

What a beautiful car. I "saw" it on the Jay Leno Garage video, which is linked to in an earlier blog post, and it looked great. But to see it in person was even more exciting. It has such an aggressive design. It looks better than the multi-100-grand cars in the exotic cars section with Aston Martins, Jaguars, and Lamborghinis. Since Fisker (the CEO of Fisker Automotive) himself designed many Aston Martins it should be no surprise that the Karma has exceptional style. With a 50 mile range and a generator, like the Chevy Volt, this car will give you no range anxiety. I bet it is a wonderful ride.

The surprise of the show for me was the Coda. It is a sharp looking car with a 36 kWhr battery. They were claiming 150 miles per charge. I've heard from other sources it is going to cost $40k, but the salesman told me it was going to be closer in price to the Leaf. He said it was going to be in Oregon in April/May. The salesman also told me the battery chemistry is superior and it will last 20 yrs or 300,000 miles. If that is true, it is quite a breakthrough. But it sure isn't what the warranty says (10 yr, 100k miles). For now, I'm going to chalk this up to sales over positioning. Nice car. Looks kind of like a Toyota Corolla or a small Volvo.

The Coda spec sheet says it has a 36 kWh Lithium Iron Phosphate battery system with 728 cells. With a recharge time of 6 hours from a Level 2 (240V, 30A) charger that is faster than the Leaf. A 36 kWh battery is much larger than the Nissan Leaf's 24 kWh battery or the Chevy Volt's 16 kWh battery. This car will be one to watch, especially if it is priced competitively with the Nissan Leaf.

The Coda had a full trunk. No battery or electronics taking up trunk space. It has a top speed of 85 mph, which is less than the other electric cars, but we aren't supposed to drive that fast anyway.

The Ford Focus Electric was displayed high on a pedestal. It sure looks good. I like the front grille treatment. A couple of teenagers were looking at it and said "I hate how Ford is stealing the Aston Martin grille!" Personally, I think it is a great improvement for Ford styling. With the Fisker Karma looking like an Aston Martin and Ford borrowing the Aston Martin grille, I guess we know the British are the source of great car design.

Finally, we say a VW conversion. My daughter loves it and calls it her dream car. This one was for sale and the owners were hoping to sell it for $10k to $15k. The owner said it drives up to 65 miles an hour and has 40 mile range. It is 5 large lead-acid batteries. I told my daughter I'm not comfortable with a conversion car and I don't want her driving an unsafe old VW beetle. I agree it is a cool car, but not safe enough for my little one.

So ends my electric version of the 2012 Portland Auto Show.

Fisker Test Drive by Jay Leno

Fisker Automotive has finally released their $100,000+ Extended-Range EV. It is a super luxury car that looks great. I understand that Fisker was the designer responsible for many of the beautiful Austin Martin cars. Now he has started his own electric car company.

It is great to hear Fisker has lots of U.S. made components. The generator is from GM. The Battery is from A123. The car is from California-based Fisker.

Like the Chevy Volt, Fisker has created an Extended-Range EV. It goes 50 miles on the battery, then switches on the 2.0-liter gas generator to keep the battery charged. At 5,000 lbs it is a heavy car, but I bet it moves well and really hugs the road. Jay Leno sure seems to like it.

Check out a 19 minute review from Jay Leno's Garage. Click here to see the video.

After watching the video I liked everything about the car except I think the interior is ugly. I went to the web site and saw that you can choose a nice leather interior instead. I hope there are be lots of people that buy this car and drive down battery prices more.

You can find out more at the Fisker web site by clicking here.