The UK gets its first Fisker Karma

The first Fisker Karma extended-range electric saloon will soon be delivered to its first UK customer, a premiership footballer. No surprise there.

This means the California-based company has also set up its first service outlet so at least there will be someone to look after it. Currently, there are no UK dealers.

Barny Koehler, chief executive of Fisker’s European business, and a co-founder of the company along with Aston Martin DB9 and V8 Vantage designer Henrik Fisker, said that it was important to establish service outlets for the car first.

He said: “The cars are left-hand-drive only and in the short term we can handle sales from Europe but we are talking to many parties in the UK who are interested in establishing dealerships”.

Fisker and Koehler established the all-new car company in 2007 and the Karma, a series hybrid with its 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine acting as a generator when the lithium-ion battery pack that drives a pair of rear-mounted electric motors runs out of charge.

As well as looking great, the car boasts impressive performance.  Total power is 397hp with a huge 959 lb-ft of torque. It can do the 0-60mph sprint in 6.3sec and reach a top speed limited to 125mph.

All this at over 60 miles to the gallon and emitting 53g/km of CO2,

The fledgling carmaker has not been without its problems this year, with a battery recall and a fire in one vehicle caused by a fan malfunction.

Koehler said: “These are things you have to deal with as a car company. But we dealt with the battery issue in record time in the US, carrying out the work in just two weeks.”

Just to make it a really bad year, Fisker also lost 300 Karmas to damage caused by Hurricane Sandy a few weeks ago.

The cars are made in Finland by contract assembler Valmet and Fisker Europe is based in Munich.