The Fisker Karma electric car, developed mainly with your tax money so that a bunch of rich VC’s wouldn’t have to risk any real money, has rolled out with an nominal EPA MPGe of 52 in all electric mode (we will ignore the gasoline engine for this analysis).52 mpg! Wow, the 2012 Honda Civic I drove from Williston, ND, to Boston, MA non-stop averaged 49 mpg. (I stopped for gas and occasional cat-naps. The most expensive part of the trip was the highway tolls through Chicago.)
Not bad? Unfortunately, it’s a sham. This figure is calculated using the grossly flawed EPA process that substantially underestimates the amount of fossil fuels required to power the electric car, as I showed in great depth in an earlier Forbes.com article. In short, the EPA methodology leaves out, among other things, the conversion efficiency in generating the electricity from fossil fuels in the first place.
Wow, it's been a great year or two. Circuited the entire US 1.5 times on Amtrak in the past two years. 2012 Honda Civic cross-country. Bakken photos.
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