HIGH ROAD

HIGH ROAD Instant KARMA

With its stunning design—and nontrivial $60,000 price cut—Karma Automotive’s new GS-6 is HARD TO RESIST

By Howard Walker

Forget that this curvy, sinewy-bodied Karma is a plug-in hybrid. Or that there’s a fully electric version around the corner. Or that its dashboard can be made from timber salvaged from California wildfires.

No, what will have your head rotating like the gal in The Exorcist is the car’s breathtaking shape. The most beautiful vehicle in the world? This is surely one of them.

Maybe it’s all those rollercoaster swoops and sweeps over the giant 22-inch wheels. Or that raked-back windshield or ski-slope-like rear screen. Or the way the body looks like it’s been stretched like a dollop of Play-Doh. Remember, this is a car that’s almost as long as a BMW 7 Series but as low as a Porsche 911. Gaze at it in profile and it resembles a hip-high Italian supercar—with four doors and a trunk.

But first, a little history lesson. Back in 2011, the LA-based Danish car-designer-turned-entrepreneur Henrik Fisker began building his Fisker Karma plug-in hybrid. Before the company went belly-up in 2013, he’d made around 2,450 cars.

Enter the Chinese Wanxiang Group, which snapped up the assets, kept the gorgeous design, and renamed the car the Karma Revero. The corporation started producing the modified version at a new factory in Moreno Valley, California, in 2016. Alas, a crazy-ambitious $130,000plus price tag, a punishing safety recall, and constant funding challenges meant the car never really gained traction—or sales.

Fast-forward to 2021 and all has changed. After a $100 million cash infusion last summer, a solid business plan, and a ramp-up in dealers—we now have enthusiastic Karma retailers in Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale, Miami Beach, and Naples—Karma is back.

Arguably the biggest news is the smarter pricing. The newly launched Karma GS-6 plug-in hybrid has a starting sticker of $85,700.

POWER FILE That’s down nearly $61,000 from the

PRICE: FROM $85,700

previous $146,600 asking. And when

ENGINE: 1.5-LITER TURBO

the highly anticipated, all-electric,

3-CYLINDER BATTERY: 28KWH

230-mile-range GSe-6 arrives toward

LITHIUM-ION POWER: 536 HP

the end of the year, it’ll have a base

TORQUE: 550 LB-FT 0-60: 4.5

SECONDS TOP SPEED: 125 MPH price of $81,700. These totals are be(LIMITED) LENGTH/WIDTH: fore any electric vehicle tax rebates 199/85 INCHES WEIGHT: 5,062 from Uncle Sam, which can add up POUNDS WHY WE LOVE IT: to $7,500, plus up to $1,000 off your BECAUSE IT TURNS HEADS electric bill. FASTER THAN IT ACCELERATES To talk technical, this 2021 GS-6 is

OFF THE LINE.

classified as an extended-range electric vehicle, or EREV. It has two highoutput electric motors spinning the rear wheels, juiced by a 28-kWh battery packing an impressive 536 hp and 550 lb-ft of torque. Pedal to the metal, the GS-6 can whizz from standstill to 60 in 4.5 seconds, or 3.9 seconds for the uprated GS-6 Sport. As for going the distance, it has an EPA-rated, pure-electric range of around 60 miles, though Karma claims it’s more like 80 in real-world driving.

While that might not sound like much, the GS-6 comes with a BMWsourced 1.5-liter turbo 3-cylinder gas motor under the hood. It’s the same one BMW used in its rakish i8 two-seater and Mini still has in its Countryman. When electric power is spent, the gas motor fires up and acts as a generator—it has no connection with the wheels—giving the Karma a total range of up to 360 miles before you need to top off the 10-gallon tank. Or simply plug into a standard Level 2 charger and you’ll have a full battery in four hours. A DC fast charger will deliver 94 percent in 34 minutes.

For anyone who suffers from range anxiety—the fear of an electric car running out of juice in, say, stop-start I-95 traffic—this is a great solution. Yet the GS-6 drives just like a feisty pure-electric, with necksnapping off-the-line acceleration, thrilling mid-range punch for safe passing, and easy, relaxed cruising. And that BMW motor is so hushed, you’d never even know it’s there. Couple all this with a four-seat interior that’s pure luxury, with rich Bridge of Weir leather, carbon-fiber trim, lovely fit and finish, and plenty of standard equipment. «

As for driving one of the most beautiful cars around? That’s karma.

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