The first presentation I attended on the second day of NAIAS was for Lincoln (no mention of Mercury). The MKT crossover has a roomy interior that manages to look and feel more upscale than that of the MKS sedan. Stitched upholstery on the center stack and center console are an improvement over silver-painted plastic. As in the MKS and the related Ford Flex, seats in the first two rows are very comfortable. So what’s not to love? That would be the clunky, chunky exterior.
It’s not that the MKT is a bad design. It’s worse than that. Lincoln’s cetacean snout looks slightly ridiculous on its cars. On a crossover, it’s tacky enough to demand a Russ Meyer remake: faster pussycat; krill, krill, krill! From Lincoln I went to GM’s stand, where CEO Rick Wagoner announced that the batteries for the Volt would be manufactured in Michigan. And that GM was going to make battery technology a core competence, with a new 31k-square foot engineering center. And that LG Chemical (of Korea) has been selected as the supplier of the battery cells. One of these statements doesn’t fit with the others.
Then things started to really not add up. BYD, a Chinese battery and vehicle manufacturer, announced it was going to be offering a five-passenger pure electric vehicle with a 250-mile range. The vehicle in question strongly resembles Honda’s Asian-market Odyssey. (All of BYD’s cars strongly resemble someone else’s car.) The technology that makes this possible? BYD’s breakthrough “ferrous” battery technology. Now, ferrous means iron. Who knew that iron was such a good basis for a battery? Also, batteries usually combine two elements. What’s the unnamed second element? Hype?
On the subject of knockoffs, the Chinese aren’t the only ones doing it. The photo above isn’t a BYD knockoff of a second-gen Toyota Prius. It’s a Honda knockoff of a second-generation Toyota Prius. Only even more ungainly. Meanwhile, Toyota introduced the third-generation Prius, which is much better looking than both the current car and Honda’s facsimile. Check out the attractive five-spoke 17-inch alloys. The high point of the roofline has been shifted rearward by four inches. While the official reason for this is more rear seat headroom, it also greatly improves the car’s proportions. Inside, the new Prius has more room and a more nicely finished interior.
Yesterday, Lexus introduced its first efficiency-focused hybrid off the Prius platform: the HS250h. Which also happens to be the first U.S.-market Lexus with a four-cylinder engine. I took a look today. The interior is Lexian, but the exterior makes the previous generation Corolla look like a suite at the Ritz. Call me El Finesse, but I’m not seeing a Lexus in this exterior. Or in the powertrain– unless driveability is way up from the second-gen Prius.
LastIy, I attended Henrik Fisker’s presentation, where his company introduced a strikingly attractive (top up or down) hardtop convertible. The former Aston designer promises his hybrid hottie will be available for discerning customers in 2012. I’ve had a number of questions about their Karma foor-door (hint: don’t call it a sedan):
1. How can Fisker manage to offer a stylish, luxurious, large (124.4-inch wheelbase, 196.3-inch length, 78.1-inch width) four-door car with a powerful hybrid powertrain (260 horsepower turbo four plus a pair of electric motors good for 400 horsepower) and monstrous 22-inch tires for conventional S-Class money? (Base price: $87,900)
2. Can GM’s rorty turbo four possibly behave as an engine in a $90,000+ sedan is expected to behave?
3. How can such a car go 50 miles on a charge? A huge battery pack would add weight and cost. See surprisingly low price above.
4. How can a car with such swoopy sheetmetal comfortably accommodate four adults.
Well, after today’s presentation I was able to sit in the Karma four door. It’s C3 Corvette tight in the front seat, and even tighter in the back seat. (For reference, I’m 5’9″ and the front seat was perhaps and inch farther rearward than I’d set it.) There’s considerably more room inside a Mazda RX-8, which has far more compact exterior dimensions. Getting in and out of the Mazda’s rear seat is also easier. Getting in and out of the the Karma is a head-and-knee-bumping chore thanks to a low roof and small door openings.
I will grant that Fisker’s made the seats as comfortable as possible given the low seating position and limited interior volume. Still, a third-gen Prius is a limo in comparison. The trunk was closed to the public. When I asked about cargo volume, they responded, “Enough for two golf bags.” So perhaps 8 cubic feet. That’s what happens when a designer is running the show. The Karma sedan is very much a four-door coupe-a Mercedes CLS taken to the extreme, with all of the compromises that implies.
I like the caption on the red Karma — “2012 Fisker Karma S exterior.”
Sexterior. That’s what I was thinkin when I looked at it.
I’m pretty sure the Chinese are looking at superoxidized iron cathodes. Fe(VI) is reduced to Fe(III) in a basic solution of potassium hydroxide, with some other metal serving as the anode (probably Zinc).
Think of it as the reverse of a Pb(II) oxidized to Pb(IV) in a lead-acid battery.
It’s been around for 10 years or so, the main draw being that iron is so cheap.
The MKT’s interior seems to retain quite a lot of the basics from the Flex. As the Flex is pretty nice, this isn’t a bad thing, but wow, is the similarity ever obvious.
Any chance of getting bigger pictures? 200×150 makes the details rather hard to discern.
It is good to see that Honda has finally gotten the range and will give Toyota some real competition in the compact hybrid segment.
I think that’s quite funny how the very designed Fisker has so little interior room with how big it looks.
Jordan Tenenbaum :
Give me 30 mins
Michael Karesh: LG makes the cells for the Volt batteries; they are only one component of the whole thing. The cells, their connecting wiring, assembly, cooling, and related management components are what will be assembled at GM’s new battery plant.
Bleh, I get so tired of the comments about Honda “copying” the Prius’s “revolutionary” design. Has nobody heard of a 1988 Honda CRX?
Now, ferrous means iron. Who knew that iron was such a good basis for a battery? Also, batteries usually combine two elements. What’s the unnamed second element? Hype?
They’re referring to lithium iron phosphate chemistry, which is also what A123 uses. A123 was originally announced as a Volt battery development partner, but didn’t get the contract. The batteries are powering a smattering of DeWalt tools at your local Home Depots, and RC enthusiasts are busy buying up replacement battery packs to extract the batteries as they pack more punch in a given weight. As I understand it, the challenges right now are cost and shape. The first will be a non-issue given time, and the second may not matter that much in vehicle design. Product designers are currently fond of using lithium-polymer batteries because they can be shaped into a variety of forms other than the typical cylindrical or prismatic cells, but to the best of my knowledge lithium iron phosphate batteries are only available in cylindrical form currently.
Can GM’s rorty turbo four possibly behave as an engine in a $90,000+ sedan is expected to behave?
It’s a series hybrid, so don’t expect it to rev up when you put your foot down. When the batteries are drained, the engine will kick on, rev to its most efficient operating RPM, charge the cells, and then stop. If you temporarily overload during charging, it will probably rev the engine further, but it’s still not a direct linkage from foot down to engine revs. Power delivery is from the electric motors and will be as it always is regardless of whether the engine is running or not, and chances are the car is tuned to muffle the engine as much as possible since there’s no need for the driver to get auditory feedback from the gas engine.
I’m excited for Fisker, not because of the original car (which is drop-dead sexy but probably won’t go a thousand miles without at least one serious mechanical engine that sends it into the shop for a week) but for the promise of a new American car company. The more little eco-wacky companies like this start up, the better the chance that one of these companies will stick around for a while. And hey, who needs more than a 50-mile range to get to the country club and back anyway?
From Lincoln I went to GM’s stand, where CEO Rick Wagoner announced that the batteries for the Volt would be manufactured in Michigan. And that GM was going to make battery technology a core competence, with a new 31k-square foot engineering center. And that LG Chemical (of Korea) has been selected as the supplier of the battery cells.
Well, you didn’t think that the EPA was going to approve a battery plant in the US anytime soon, did you? Even if it could be done, the sheer amount of environmental impact assessment paperwork required to prove that your plant which makes batteries that replace that nasty, global-warming causing gasoline won’t cause birth defects in naked mole rats could probably heat the White House for a year.
RE: the Lincoln MKT…
I guess the new Acura grill isn’t as wacky as I first reckoned.
As Honda claims to want to move the brand more into Merc/BMW territory Acura seems to be more at ease in the luxo-basement with Lincoln. Sad.
Lincoln’s cetacean snout looks slightly ridiculous on its cars.
“Alien-esque” would be my adjective. Although, I can’t find a good comparison pic of the Alien’s dental structure.
MKT is a sexy car, and the interior pics are AWESOME
“Ferrous” batteries could also imply LiFePO4 (lithium iron phosphate) chemistry. It’s quite well studied and is commercially available. It’s higher in energy density than lead-acid or nickel metal hydride but is less energy dense than LiMn or LiCo type chemistries that are found in laptop batteries and such. On the other hand, LiFePO4 also doesn’t blow up when overcharged or overheated, making it a better choice for large applications that may be involved in collisions.
For what it’s worth I chose LiFePO4 as my chemistry of choice when I built my electric bicycle up. It has 576 Wh of LiFePO4, which is rather amusing when the newly-cheapened Honda Insight automobile has only 580 Wh of NiMH at its disposal. Yes, my bicycle has as much battery as a mild hybrid automobile.
Michael,
Great reporting. Thanks.
Honest-to-God, when I saw the profile picture of the Lexus HS250h earlier today, I thought Subaru had “fixed” the 4-door Impreza.
Lincoln’s cetacean snout looks slightly ridiculous on its cars.
Slightly?
Only when compared to this “masterpiece”.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y12/vadp/alien.jpg
like.a.kite: The Karma doesn’t just look big. It is big. Check out the dimensions above. When GM showed the Sixteen concept, I said it would never fly because of abysmally inefficient packaging. Well, we’re about to find out if packaging matters.
I’ve spent additional time in the Karma since writing this piece. If the front seat is all the way back, there is no space for legs behind it–I couldn’t get my legs in the car.
lzaffuto: No one’s going to think CRX when they see the Insight. It strongly resembles the Prius, and that’s not a coincidence.
psarhjinian: The MKT looks nothing like the Flex, inside or out. I can’t warm to the exterior. Maybe others will? Maybe, but I wouldn’t bet on it. The interior, though, is very well done.
What’s the unnamed second element? Hype?
If there were a way to make cars run on hype, there’d be hope for Detroit after all.
@Brian E.
I’m excited for Fisker, not because of the original car (which is drop-dead sexy but probably won’t go a thousand miles without at least one serious mechanical engine that sends it into the shop for a week) but for the promise of a new American car company.
The Fiskers will be made in Finland…
The Fisker twins sound like roomy, inexpensive, “green” vehicles.
For Tom Cruise.
I read somwhere that GM had chosen LG because their cells were available in a rectangular form factor, which would mean more efficent use of space in multiple-cell packs.
The Fiskers will be made in Finland…
Yeah, by Valmet, but that didn’t make the Boxster or Cayman any less German. In keeping with the Detroit tradition of insisting that any car made in the US by a company headquartered outside the US was not domestic, I’m going to insist that the Karma is red-white-and-blue-blooded American. I’m not sure what Henrik will think of that, though…
Good Lord, Lincoln. I liked the Lincoln grille on the front of the original Zephyr/MKZ. It was definitely the most attractive of the CD3 sedans. But it’s metastasized into the way-fugly.
Honest-to-God, when I saw the profile picture of the Lexus HS250h earlier today, I thought Subaru had “fixed” the 4-door Impreza.
Which is itself not that far off from the Corolla. The universal reaction here seems to be that it looks like an economy car. Hybrid or no, that’s brand-destroying. Look at how much noise has been made about whether the 318ti and C coupé befit their brands.
The Avensis wasn’t designed as a Lexus, and by applying the L badge to it without L-finesse in the design, they’ve killed their own styling direction before it ever really got going. Shame on Toyota for engaging in the type of cheap badge engineering that has destroyed the Big 3.
@Brian E :
The universal reaction here seems to be that it looks like an economy car. Hybrid or no, that’s brand-destroying. Look at how much noise has been made about whether the 318ti and C coupé befit their brands.
Without hatchbacks, BMW and Mercedes would have lost the young hipster crowd in Europe, where people under 50 don’t touch sedans with a ten-foot-pole. If exporting them to America was a wise move… I don’t know.
The Avensis wasn’t designed as a Lexus, and by applying the L badge to it without L-finesse in the design, they’ve killed their own styling direction before it ever really got going.
If you look at pictures of an Avensis, it’s clear that it doesn’t share any sheet metal with the HS250h. The shoulder line if the Avensis is Volvo-esque, while the 250 is more slab-sided, the 250 has a shorter hood and more of a cab-forward design, the 250’s C-pillars look like on the IS, while the Avensis has a Hofmeister kink etc etc.
The RX wasn’t designed as a Lexus either (straight rebadge of a Toyota Harrier), nobody ssems to bother in the USA and nobody seems to buy them where I live.
You can say Honda is knocking off the Prius if you want, but I guaranty you its going 3x more fun to drive. It’s based on the Fit.
The problem with the C230 and the 318ti was that they looked cheap when compared to the brands’ other cars. It was like you paid for a 3 series but got a Cavalier interior. Plus those cars were sold during the height of the SUV craze
The HS250h looks to be high finish
@davey49 :
The problem with the C230 and the 318ti was that they looked cheap when compared to the brands’ other cars. It was like you paid for a 3 series but got a Cavalier interior.
The BMW had a different interior than the other E36 3-series of it’s time, but the C-class hatchback? The only difference was the shape of the hood over the instruments, otherwise it looked like any C-class inside.