Fisker Wraps Investigation of Karma Fires at New Jersey Port, Blames One Car's Vehicle Control Unit

Last week, Sandy's furious tempest resulted in 16 brand-new Fisker Karma sedans and three Toyota Prius hybrids going up in flames at a shipping facility in New Jersey after being submerged in seawater for many hours.

While we have yet to hear from Toyota, Fisker's engineers finished investigating the incident and have just released their findings through a press statement.

According to the manufacturer, the culprit turned out to be a low voltage Vehicle Control Unit in one Karma, which after being under salt water for several hours, short-circuited and caused a fire that then spread to the other 15 extended-range plug-in hybrid models parked nearby due to the strong winds blowing at the time.

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Mega Storm Sandy Submerges 16 New Fisker Karma EVs, which Then Catch Fire at New Jersey Port

The bad news for Fisker continues. Among the many victims of Hurricane and then Tropical Storm Sandy are approximately 16 brand new Fisker Karma extended-range hybrids that were parked in Port Newark, New Jersey.

An eyewitness told Jalopnik (which like the rest of the Gawker websites, continues to be down after Sandy drowned its data center but is broadcasting temporarily from this site), that the Karma sedans “first submerged in a storm surge and then caught fire, exploded.”

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Fisker Karma Gets Colorful Wraps for its First Visit to the SEMA Show

Even Fisker cannot resist the lure of the SEMA aftermarket show, which it will be attending along with re-skinned examples of its Karma plug-in hybrid luxury sports sedan.

To be honest, there's nothing really dramatic about Fisker's SEMA show Karma saloons as the California-based automaker has simply chosen to display a car dressed in protective film wraps from 3M to highlight its newly formed partnership with the company, and a second custom-painted model dedicated to synthetic motor oil brand Mobil 1.

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