Here’s comes the green machine.
Carmaker Fisker unveiled the Karma at the New York car show today — the first luxury plug-in hybrid to hit the market.
The car, which will go into production later this year, will cost $89,000.
Despite the economic recession, the California-based company is already taking orders — with 1,300 already ordered. The first model will go on sale in the summer of 2010.
Designer and CEO Henrik Fisker, who used to work as a senior designer for Austin Martin, came up with the concept.
“I asked myself what are we going to be driving around in the future,” he said. “Quite frankly I didn’t really feel like just driving around in a little tiny strange car with 25 horsepower because government says we can’t drive nice cars anymore because of fuel consumption.”
The four-door sports car can plug into any normal electrical outlet and burns no fuel for the first 50 miles and has a solar panel roof. The panel can be used to activate the climate control in the car to cool it down or it can be used to add extra miles to the electric charge.
After 50 miles, the car runs on normal gas.