Fisker Claims Multi-Speed Gearbox Would Give Karma “Veyron Speed”

Fisker’s environment-friendly hybrid sports sedan, the Karma, can hardly be called a slouch but if someone were to tell you that it could reach “Bugatti Veyron levels of performance” you'd probably look at them a little askance. But that's exactly what Henrik Fisker recently supported during an interview with British weekly magazine Autocar.

More specifically, the founder of the company said that the development of a reliable multi-speed gearbox could offer electric-powered vehicles a huge boost in performance.

That is because, despite all the torque being readily available, an electric-vehicle's performance is currently limited by having a single forward gear. The problem, says Fisker, is reliability. If automakers they can solve this issue, all that torque will make the Karma rival the Veyron – while, at the same time, being much more “green”.

Until that day comes, Fisker will focus on launching the Karma with the first examples to begin arriving in customer hands by the end of the month.