As a car enthusiast, I've followed Fisker, based on my home turf in Orange County. The Karma is beautiful, if now entirely practical in function.
The founder Henrik Fisker design beautiful vehicles, no doubt....he's been with Aston Marton, BMW, his own couchbuilding company, before founding Fisker.
The technology configuration of the Karma is like the Volt, the Prius plug in, the Ford C-Max, etc. A regular gas-electric hybrid, like the Prius does NOT recharge by plugging it in. It recharges by driving it, from brakes, etc. It can go a short distance on electric, but must have a regular gasoline motor.
A plug in like the Volt, the Fisker Karma, etc. can recharge from plugging in, and can go some distance on electric only.
A third category of electric ONLY like the Nissan leaf, has no on board gas engine, at all. I believe the Tesla is electric only. This category was recently noted by the Prius engineer of Toyota as being largely NOT practical, due to range and charge time--for most Americans.
I am not writing off Fisker. They didn't get this far, without some big plusses. Interest from Geely is significant. They bought Volvo, and then didn't ruin it.
Ford has good hybrid technology, and has introduced their C-Max with regular hybrid, and with plug-in. Toyota has introduced plug in for their Prius.
The Obama stmiulus was ill-conceived, but it remains in the taxpayers' interst for the firms to survive and repay.