Fisker's LaSorda: Instant Karma Breakdown Intentional
Yesterday, we could report that the fickle Fisker that embarrassingly broke down in Consumer Reports’ driveway, received a new battery, under warranty. Now we hear that it was no breakdown. The Fisker Karma shut itself down intentionally to prevent bigger damage.
“The Karma performed exactly as it was designed to,” Fisker customers can read in a letter from Fisker CEO Tom LaSorda. The former Chrysler CEO and GM exec goes on to say:
“The onboard diagnostics detected a fault and entered a protection mode that shut the car down to protect other components. We are sorry for the inconvenience this caused the customer.”
According to Reuters, LaSorda put together a “SWAT team” of 50 engineers and other consultants to identify any problems or other issues experienced by Karma owners. New software is being tested “round the clock.”
“As soon as this procedure is complete we will send updated software out,” says the letter.
Consumer Reports maintains that the dealer repair invoice said the problem was “duplicated repeatedly” and a fault was found in the car’s battery and inverter cable. Mr. LaSorda needs to know: Intentional or not, a break down is a breakdown.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Memo to Dr. Karen: A breakdown is a breakdown, even if it is software-related, and esp. when there are 50 engineers working on the topic.
It's a lot easier and profitable to just charge the buyer 40K for new batteries, blaming user error. Did Fisker know about the failure by GPS signal tracking as well?
"The Fisker Karma shut itself down intentionally to prevent bigger damage." What would the bigger damage have been? After the shutdown, the whole battery needed to be replaced. Unless driving the car would have been a fire hazard, what problems were avoided by the car shutting itself down?
Bertel is right on.... The CEO is playing a game of failure modes and protection levels.... Level 1 failed.... But hey let's talk about level 2 and 3 and 4 that worked great! Let's talk about all the super engineering that we did to deal with the utter failure of our product. Like your tv shutting off during the Super Bowl and being told about how awesome it is that it didn't explode and fill your chest with shrapnel because our engineers are super smart!