Yes, Americans can make stylish and forward thinking cars!

Karma

“Fisker Automotive is a green American premium sports car company with a mission to create a range of beautiful environmentally friendly cars that make environmental sense without compromise.”

What makes the Fisker special?  Materials, technology and style from what I gather.  Build materials are eco friendly and the technology is pretty forward thinking, at least for cars.  Basically the Fisker acts sort of like a diesel electric locomotive where the motor is essentially a generator powering the electric motors.  Major difference here though is that the Fisker mostly uses batteries and relies on being charged for maximum efficiency.  The goal is to have the vehicle run completely on battery power for the first 50 miles or so and when needed, the gasoline motor charges the battery back to full and once again, you are cruising under the stealthy whisper of electric power.  Why this is great is current electric cars have limited range and when drained, you have to recharge.   This method allows for extended road trips, however at the expense of adding less efficiency as the gas motor is engaged more often.

The neat thing though is that it does this all while giving 0-60 performance of 5.8 seconds, amazing luxury and style and supposedly up to 100mpg when used for commuting under 50 miles a day and charged properly prior to your commute.   Drawback is of course it’s $87,000 starting asking price.   Hardly affordable and even makes the way overpriced Chevy volt look cheap in comparison.   However, the Karma is in a different league in style and creature appointments, more in line with a BMW or other premium branded car so depending on how the production models actually perform, the price may not be to out of line with it’s normally aspirated competition over the course of lifetime ownership and you can have a lighter conscience knowing that your carbon footprint is much smaller than it would have been otherwise.