Remember the Karma Revero? It was the refreshed version of the Fisker Karma, a hybrid sport-luxury car with some striking exterior proportions and design and a shockingly small interior. The old Fisker company was bought by the Chinese company Wanxiang back around 2014 (though they moved the factory to California), and the Revero was updated a good bit, perhaps most significantly in 2020 when the 2-liter GM Ecotec was replaced with the 1.5-liter BMW TwinPower I3 turbo inline-3, the same engine that was used as the range extender on the BMW i8.
[Author’s Note: Holy shit, has this post been an unexpected ass-pain. I blame David. Well, maybe Matt, too. See, this all started at the event where Karma showed their new supercar or whatever and there was a Revero there and I went to poke around in it and managed to find the emergency door releases. I came back to Matt and David and mentioned this and how they seemed to be better than the Tesla emergency door release and I swear they both said this should be a post. They sent me back to take some pics and everything.
When I brought this up to David on Slack, he denied that he ever suggested this should be a post:
I bring this up because David has been all over my ass about this stupid post, and it’s snowballed into such A Thing that I decided the only way to make this work is with painful, total transparency. So, during this post I’m going to jump in with the behind-the-scenes messiness. –JT]
Despite all these changes, the Revero is still expensive (the cheapest versions are about $80 grand, $130,000 or so is normal), it’s still got terrible interior room and packaging, it’s not really all that efficient, and I have no idea who they’re selling these to. I haven’t seen one on the road in forever. But I did see one at Karma’s event to unveil their Karma Kaveya electric hypercar thing, and that’s where I got to poke around in it and realize it has at least one advantage over, say, a Tesla Model Y.
Here’s that advantage:
Yes, I’m talking about the emergency door release! Here’s it with the cover off:
Now, let me be absolutely clear here: I think any car that requires a secondary, emergency way to open the door is a failure of design, because electrically-actuated door latches are, charitably, stupid. Car door latches are very much a solved problem. Adding motors and electricity and redundant emergency methods to open the damn door is just needless complication for extremely minimal reward.
That said, I think Karma’s approach to emergency door releases is superior to Tesla’s, for two reasons: first, all the doors have an emergency release; some Tesla Model 3s and Ys don’t have emergency rear door releases, and for the ones that do, it’s not exactly easy to get to them. This is from the Tesla Model Y owner’s manual:
The Karma’s emergency door release, while somewhat hidden on the underside of the armrest, is at least pretty easy and quick to get access to:
[Author’s Note: Okay, here’s where shit starts to get messy. So, I was just thinking of this post as a kind of silly thing, finding one mostly inconsequential metric where the Revero – a car that has been so soundly and thoroughly beaten by Teslas that it’s not even funny – can come out ahead. This little bone we throw to the under-est dog-est of underdogs will not even likely result in one person choosing a Karma over a Tesla, but it seemed like it’d make a funny and mildly informative post.
At first, David seemed on board:
There’s actually a reason why the easier-to-find location of the Tesla front release is not a good thing, to the point where people even sell stickers to make sure passengers don’t accidentally use it. And that’s because using the emergency door release on the front doors of some Teslas can and has, in at least some number of cases, broken windows. I’ve seen it happen personally, as I recount here:]
The other reason I think Karma’s emergency door release setup is superior to Tesla’s is because, unlike Tesla, the Karma system allows for opening doors without shattering windows, as happens when Tesla’s emergency release is used:
I saw this happen firsthand with my neighbor’s Tesla Model Y back in June; it really just is a terrible design decision, where opening an un-powered door on a Tesla Model Y (and I think Model 3, too) will cause the window to bend and crack. This is just the price you have to pay if you want to, you know, get out of a Tesla with no power.
The Revero, for all its flaws, does not have this problem.
Why can’t we compare them? I used the emergency release on a bone-stock Revero and it didn’t break any windows, and I saw the emergency release used on a bone-stock Tesla Model Y and it did. That’s something!
Man, I just wanted this to be a quick post. Is he suggesting that my actually seeing the Tesla’s emergency door release break the window in real time, firsthand, is as meaningless as some anecdotal evidence? Okay, sure, maybe the Tesla release doesn’t break windows every time, but we know for a fact that it breaks them sometimes, and that’s shitty enough, right?
There’s no evidence of this happening with a Karma and its also-frameless windows, but it doesn’t seem that will satisfy David, nor will anything short of, I guess, testing every Karma ever built? Now, he is definitely right to note that the Karma I tested on did have power, and the Tesla issue happens when the door has no power going to it:
How the fuck am I going to prove it’s the case for all Reveros? I mean, I think I can make some pretty good extrapolations since all of the cars are built identically, and we’re generally okay with that in this business – when we do reviews, we don’t keep clarifying that these driving impressions are only applicable to some specific VIN – plus, there are tons of cars with frameless windows, like many Subarus or Mustangs, that have never shattered windows when their doors open with a dead battery.
I understand, on some fundamental level, what David is going for, and it’s noble. He wants us to be able to defend what we say, and he especially doesn’t want us to fall into the trap of knee-jerk Tesla shitting-upon. I get that and respect it.
But for a post like this? And it just kept going. David sent me a video of someone using the release in a Tesla without the window breaking, leading to this:
Why are we like this? I know he’s right in at least some ways, but this all makes me want to punch a meatloaf, over and over. Why can’t things be easy? Why can’t I just write a dumb little post comparing a car no one cares about to one all kinds of people care about and just throw it online and forget about it? Ugggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh. – JT]
[Ed Note: I love Jason, I just want us to be careful claiming one design is better than the other based on extremely limited data (there aren’t a lot of Revero owners, so you’d expect there to be few cases of shattered windows). Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jason is right. -DT].
I guess I wrote this because of some perverse, misplaced pity for the Revero; I don’t think it’s a particularly good car – it’s better than the original Fisker Karma, which I once took a minute and a half to kvetch about:
Karma has improved the car, but it has sales that are still a minuscule rounding error when compared with Tesla sales, so I just wanted to point out that in at least one ridiculous metric that, if I had it my way, would never exist at all, the Karma is significantly and measurably superior to the Tesla.
You’re welcome, Karma.
Fughettaboutit! Ha ha
My god, just look at the window frame design. What is the Karma window going to be in contact with if you yank open the door without the window indexing? Now what is the Tesla window going to be in contact with? Looks like the Tesla’s window nudges up underneath a plastic (?) sill trim piece thing. I’m willing to bet the Karma is more like my BMW where the window nudges up into a depression in the rubber window seal instead of being captive by a piece of hard trim. I hate blindly giving Tesla shit as well (it minimizes their actual design failings) but if we had some pictures of the window-door-frame interface it’d be pretty easy to draw a conclusion here.
I’m with you, Torch. I know exactly the trap DT is falling into because I do it myself all the time: catastrophic, all-or-nothing incontrovertible proof of something that really doesn’t need that much proof, even if the other party (in this case, Torch) is ultimately wrong.
Btw, my 03 Z4 with a deadass battery didn’t shatter my window when I opened the doors last week. Suck it, Tesla.
I get it. It’s tempting to say “Therefore my Z4 is better than Teslas!”
But remember, I’m an enginerd!
Totally with you! The singular of data is NOT “Jason says it happened” and the plural of “anecdote” is not data but rather “anecdotes!”. The difference is that data is collected in controlled conditions with a statistically viable sample size.
Now, I didn’t pass Statistics but I DID sit in a classroom where they talked about it for a semester, so I know a thing or two:
You’re gonna need at least 10 Fiskars and 10 Teslas, and to control as many variables as possible they ideally should all be the same color; we know that heat absorption varies by color and that might be a factor. Having acknowledged that temperature may be an influence, the cars should all be sent to Death Valley in July and Anchorage in January. Naturally the same cars should be used for both extremes to eliminate another variable.
Finally the tester should be the same person each time to control for differences in style and technique in pull-ring pulling and both the ‘short-smart-jerk’ and the ‘long-slow-pull” should be tested. I mean the problem may only occur when some short smart jerk tries to open the door.
Now who on your staff would qualify?
This post made me realize that when I rode in a Model 3 today (in my defense, my second ride ever) I used the emergency door release. I had no idea it wasn’t the normal handle.
This behind-the-scenes messiness (and honesty and slightly chaotic well-natured arguments over the smallest details) is why I pay you people mediocre money.
But also, Jason, can’t you just call up both Karma owners and ask if they’ve ever cracked a window?
It appears that David’s mystery partner is actually Torch. Sounds like you’ve been married for a while.
This implies Jason is a Lexus man, which could be hard to believe. However: have you seen Jason and DT’s partner in the same place at the same time?
*drops mic, walks away from explosion without looking back*
OH SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Power doors are a solution to a non-existent problem.
My Mom’s 1972 Monterey, and the ’69 Galaxie 500 before that, had frameless windows that were powered by arm energy, and they never broke when opening the very un-powered doors.
This article reminded me that the Fisker Karma…I mean the VLF Destino…I mean the Karma GS-6…I mean the Karma Revero still exists. Entertaining read!
Atari 2600 Boxing until this is settled, guys.
Is it wrong that I enjoyed reading about the infighting it took to get this article out? Since my professional life is engineers arguing with engineers, it’s actually kind of refreshing to see non-engineer’s retorts to the logical arguments we engineers cook up in our heads.
This gives me horrible flashbacks to having technical arguments with people who have no business case for making technical arguments.
Yeah, but it still isn’t as bad as the waking nightmare my job can be at times, which is trying to make a business case to let the engineers make engineering decisions instead of allowing the non-engineer MBAs call all the shots. The number of times I’ve had to explain that just because someone saw some buzzword-heavy article in the Harvard Business Review about “Industry 4.0” doesn’t mean we are ready to slash the maintenance budget and fire all the engineers and technicians…
This reminds me so much of listening to my children fight.
IF YOU TWO DON’T STOP FIGHTING, I WILL TURN THIS WEBSITE AROUND AND NOBODY GETS ANY ICE CREAM!!! DON’T THINK I WON’T DO IT!!!
This article is hilarious. Also, My 2004 Audi S4 Cab has interference windows. For years I had a stereo installed with a phantom draw that would kill the battery. Of all the countless times I opened and closed the doors with zero power, the windows never broke. I consider the Tesla’s, or any car that breaks a window while opening a door under any circumstance to be a gross oversight and fundamental design flaw.
Yeah, I mean we already have the whole range anxiety thing. I don’t want to add “not only will you run out of battery on the road, but you’ll have to bust a window to get out of the car” to the EV naysayer’s arguments
“I consider the Tesla’s, or any car that breaks a window while opening a door under any circumstance to be a gross oversight and fundamental design flaw.”
You misspelled “feature”.
– rabid Fanboi
A dude in my parking garage has a karma revero. It’s still very pretty but I really want to run into him so I can ask how he even managed to order one let alone how much he paid.
Your fatal flaw was talking to an engineer. They need numbers to function correctly. Give them something to count and they are fine. Anything based on common sense with no numbers, and they melt down.
Just kidding of course. My own dear, sweet mother is a retired engineer.
As an engineer who has spent most of the last few decades being the go-between (and manager) of other engineers, all on account of being able to translate engineer talk into human-understandable words, I find this take hilariously accurate.
So, I take it you have people skills. You deal with the GD customers because engineers are not good at dealing with customers?
I have people skills. I’m good at dealing with people. Can’t you understand that?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!!
You’re hired!
Great! I have an idea for a mat that you could put on the floor, and would have different “conclusions” on it that you could “jump to”…
Ahh, my people quoting Office Space. Life is good.
What am I going to do with forty subscriptions to Vibe?!
Jason to DT: “I’m gonna have to go ahead and sorta disagree with you there”
Relevant:
https://xkcd.com/670/
I had to keep reminding myself that Fisker and Karma are separate companies now, and that Fisker’s demise/Ocean issues have no bearing on this OEM’s upcoming demise/issues.
I mean, the fundamental error here was that you could call one shitty solution slightly less shit than another shitty solution. Needing a manual door override is, as you pointed out, shit. All types are shit.
Also, just to throw another cup of gasoline into your argument, one could say the Tesla version that breaks the window is safer. Imagine you have just driven your car into a lake, and all of the electronics are shorted out. Getting the door open underwater is actually incredibly difficult due to the pressure differential, and your best bet is to break a window (which is what those little glass hammers you see in buses are for). If the Tesla comes pre-cracked, that’s a much better option in such a situation.
“If the Tesla comes pre-cracked, that’s a much better option in such a situation.”
Unless it gives and you drown long before you have wrestled your way out of your seat belt.
Did no one ascertain whether or not the normal opening of a powered Revero door involves the window dropping a bit? Because if it doesn’t, then it negates David’s need for proof of the negative conjecture “but are you *sure* a Revero window never has broken ever”.
It does. I ascertained that early in our argument.
It does, but not in order to clear any hard points – is it just to allow for pressure equalization? I remember this being a thing on the BMW 850i back in 1991 or something.
Frameless windows were a thing long before electronic door handles and computer controlled everything, and did just fine not break or leaking.
As usual, useless complexity has made things worse and more expensive.
Cars are expected to be quieter and more aerodynamic nowadays. I’d bet that’s part of the reason designers want the windows jammed up into the gaskets after closing.
A 57 Chevy hardtop drops the window when you open the door. It’s absolutely possible without electronics or any electric anything. I wouldn’t be surprised if that goes all the way back to the first GM hardtops in 49
I particularly like the way the BMW Z1 handles dropping the window when the door is “opened”. Something like this could be engineered into the Tesla door as well. The Koenigsegg doors rotate 90 degrees while swinging open, for heaven’s sake. There’s got to be a way Tesla could engineer a half inch drop as the door starts to open.
Mommy’s alright. Daddy’s alright. They just seem a little weird.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfD67mXckqA
This car still exists?!
Stop Arguing, or I’m going to turn this car around!!!
I agree, doors that need an emergency release are dumb, there’s plenty of designs with physical handles that are also fairly streamlined so the whole “it helps aero” argument is lame.
I appreciate the behind the scenes back and forth of some ‘vetting’, but wondering if the conversation should have been opened up as a review of the many various car makes now that have electronic doors and how they manage the emergency releases, as the initial take seems to be “Tesla sucks, Karma has a better solution”, but there’s several others that have these stupid electronic doors, I’d be interested to see their various redundant controls that shouldn’t be needed.
Not a bad thought!
“…but this all makes me want to punch a meatloaf, over and over.”
It’s ok, Jason. Mixing work and friendship can be complicated. Some days it don’t come easy, and some days it don’t come hard. Some days it don’t come at all.
These are the days that never end…
I haven’t worked with Karma in about 5 years. It’s UNBELIEVABLE that company still exists in any form.
“far too much time”
Journalistic integrity is hard and friends agreeing is sometimes harder. I’m suprised this wasn’t a SlackTales (ooo e oo).
I see what you did there
I wanted to give the SlackTales experience to EVERYBODY. Also, we have such a better slack tales this week!
I do love a good peek behind the curtain, for sure. Keep ’em coming!
“Adding motors and electricity and redundant emergency methods to open the damn door is just needless complication for extremely minimal reward.”
This is all that is needed. Post a petition to the NHTSA and I bet most would sign it.
That will probably just result in them ditching the redundant emergency method because that’s the world we’re in.
“because that’s the world we’re in”
Only if sensible people remain silent. Far too much gee wizardry BS going unchecked.
I’m constantly harping on about it. Doesn’t seem to change anything. I’m starting to suspect it’s because I harp on about it. There’s a non-zero chance I was born for the universe to annoy and they have grabbed onto the unsafe electronic stupidity and pushed obnoxious security theater so hard because I’m vocal in my opposition to it. At this point, I think it’s too late to try reverse psychology.
I think we have an above average community here, and it has proven itself constructive in identifying broken lighting elements after crashes. Hopeful that more good could come from this.
Never give up, Never surrender!
No plans to. I have nothing else to do and complaining is my passion.