12 Fisker Karmas burn to the ground after NJ Port floods

[EVDrive]

More bad news for Fisker.

http://carscoop.blogspot.com/2012/10/mega-storm-sandy-submerges-16-new.html
http://updates.jalopnik.com/

12 of 16 Karmas burned to the ground after being flooded and submerged in water at the NJ Port by hurricane Sandy.
Wow.

 

[nosuchthing]

Oh my god!

 

[abasile]

It is better that this happened at the port, with no one injured, rather than in someone's garage or driveway. Hopefully Fisker will get to the bottom of it.

That said, if I were prepared to spend $100K on a car, a Tesla S with an 85 kWh pack would be far more attractive to me than a Fisker Karma, even with all of the bugs worked out. IMHO, Fisker's days are numbered.

 

[TonyWilliams]

I'm going to guess that these cars don't seal their batteries well. The LEAF shouldn't do this.

 

[EVDrive]

I'm going to guess that these cars don't seal their batteries well. The LEAF shouldn't do this.

Agreed, I don't think they did the drive through the floodwater test like Nissan did with the Leaf.

 

[surfingslovak]

I'm going to guess that these cars don't seal their batteries well. The LEAF shouldn't do this.

Agreed, I don't think they did the drive through the floodwater test like Nissan did with the Leaf.

There were press reports from Japan about Leafs that survived last year's tsunami without any fires to report. That said, I'm still speechless about the pics EVDrive posted upthread. :shock:

 

[cwerdna]

I wonder if conventional ICEVs would've caught fire in the same circumstances. After all, there were car fires in large lots as a result of the tsuanmi in Japan.

http://photoblog.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/03/12/6249899-hundreds-vehicles-caught-fire-following-devastating-tsunami-in-japan?lite" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; has a pic that I was able to quickly dig up. I do remember seeing pics or videos of probably the same lot w/flames. Unfortunately, the video at http://www.autoblog.com/2011/03/11/tsunami-in-japan-destroys-fleet-of-cars-ready-for-shipping/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; been removed for some reason.

edit: Ok, finally found a working video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW3_xvuoC_8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

 

[turbo2ltr]

No telling if it was just one that caused the rest of them to catch fire. The first picture shows at least two Karmas that didn't catch fire but they were not in the "pack"..

 

[palmermd]

cars burning in a flood? what a strange headline, and an awful picture. I think this will end the company unfortunately.

 

[turbo2ltr]

I've been following the storm as I'm from LI and there are a lot of reports of fires. In queens,ny 80-100 homes burned to the ground. Leveled. I thought it odd too how you can have such devastating fires in a flood.

 

[keydiver]

During hurricane Francis a house in my development caught fire, and the fire company was powerless to stop it. Between the high winds fanning the flames, and the impossibility of doing anything outdoors during a hurricane, it burned to the ground rather quickly. I never did find out what started it, but during storms people do all kinds of things that could start a fire: run gas generators in the house :roll: , light candles for lighting, and in colder climates they fire up kerosene or gas heaters to keep warm. Then you always have external issues, like trees falling on electric lines, transformers blowing up, or electric lines falling to the ground. Although I'm sure that it inconvenienced some folks, I thought it was a smart move that some of the power companies shut off the entire substations during the worst of Sandy. This not only saved their equipment from blowing up, but may have prevented some customer fires or electrocutions.

 

[adric22]

Bad news. Apparently you can't drive your Fisker underwater. I guess that could be a dealbreaker for some.

 

[mkjayakumar]

Can someone please explain, why getting submerged in water should start a fire in Fisker or any other EV or ICE for that matter ? I would have thought it would exactly do the opposite..

 

[camasleaf]

I wonder if conventional ICEVs would've caught fire in the same circumstances. After all, there were car fires in large lots as a result of the tsuanmi in Japan.

In that video you can see that the cars were piled and smashed together, that can explain the fire (gas tanks leaking + batteries that generate sparks). The Karmas seem to have burned on their parking spot.

 

[ericsf]

Can someone please explain, why getting submerged in water should start a fire in Fisker or any other EV or ICE for that matter ? I would have thought it would exactly do the opposite..

The article says that the fire started after the water receided. One explanation is that the water got into the battery and caused short circuits. When fully under water, the heat was absorbed by water and the fire could not start. But when most of the water was gone, the heat must have gone up and started the fire in one of the cars. I guess the investigation will find out exactly how it happened.

We can argue all we want about Nissan's battery design but no active cooling means the pack can be sealed much more effectively and protected from such disaster.

 

[jkirkebo]

We can argue all we want about Nissan's battery design but no active cooling means the pack can be sealed much more effectively and protected from such disaster.

I don't see how Teslas liquid cooling would do much worse sealing-wise.

 

[RegGuheert]

I've been following the storm as I'm from LI and there are a lot of reports of fires. In queens,ny 80-100 homes burned to the ground. Leveled.

This morning on the news they showed a bunch of beachfront homes in NJ which burned up overnight and were still burning this morning. It seems houses are quite vulnerable when no one is around to put out the fires. In both this case and in NY, the fire fighters were unable to get to the fires. The firemen said that could not drive through the 5-7 feet of water between them and the fire in NY.

 

[hill]

Call me me odd - but does it really matter? Would YOU buy a flooded car? Isn't thay why people run to CARFAX ... to find out whether or not to buy a car if you find it's been in a flood? Seems to me it doesn't really matter once any car has been in a flood. I guess you could sell the tires, short block and body parts for salvage - but not too much more. I mean if these pigs flame out during a heavy down poor ... THAT would be creepy. It sure makes one wonder how serious Fisker tested these suckers in any case.

 

[RegGuheert]

Call me me odd - but does it really matter?

It matters in the sense that there have been a few instances of spontaneous combustion with these cars already, in a garage and in a parking lot. But those cases were not blamed on the battery system. Perhaps this means there is another way for these vehicles to self-destruct.

I wonder if any LEAFs or Volts will burn up. Certainly some of those got flooded as well. It will be good to get reports on other flooded EVs and how they fared (though not good for the owners).

 

[surfingslovak]

I wonder if any LEAFs or Volts will burn up. Certainly some of those got flooded as well.

Leafs should hold up, no fires were reported in the wake of the tsunami in Japan last year. That said, I noticed that someone from DOT was looking at this thread, and Fisker has issued the following statement:

It was reported today that several Fisker Karmas were damaged by fire at the Port of Newark after being submerged in sea water during Superstorm Sandy. We can report that there were no injuries and none of the cars were being charged at the time.

We have confidence in the Fisker Karma and safety is our primary concern. While we intend to find the cause as quickly as possible, storm damage has restricted access to the port.

We will issue a further statement once the root cause has been determined.