With that video in mind, Fisker recently took the top design award from Fast Company.

The judges praised the design’s boldness. “The Fisker shows what you can do by taking risks in sedan design,” says judge Erica Eden, a Femme Den founder at Smart Design, “and that’s really what consumers want.”

Risks in sedan design? Soon after recieving their award for “innovation” many Fiskers in NY exploded (due to hurricane Sandy).

We have confidence in the Fisker Karma and safety is our primary concern. While we intend to find the cause as quickly as possible, storm damage has restricted access to the port. We will issue a further statement once the root cause has been determined.

Ooops. Perhaps not what they meant by risky? I say design fail.

I point out the award and the explosion because another finalist in the same competition was a Faraday electric bicycle that weighs only 40 lbs.

We’re very excited to announce that the Faraday Porteur has been selected as a finalist for the Fast Company “Innovation By Design” awards, the winner of which will be announced October 16th in NYC.

Now imagine going backwards in time and adding resilience/survivability metrics to the design award criteria for innovation…

Here’s my suggestion to Fast Company and Faraday for a new promotion that would resonate in NYC: “Bicycles. They carry you around the city faster then automobiles, they cost a small fraction, and they don’t explode.” Performance, reliability, affordability. What else do you want?

I’ve written before about the increase in bicycle sales after disasters and the social benefits of cycling. Fast Company really missed an opportunity to recognize the future direction of transportation.

A gasoline automobile gets the award? Really? Not innovative. But giving the award to a $100K gasoline vehicle that increases the risk of failure or injury…?

At least Consumer Reports had some usability perspective in their review of the Fisker.

We buy about 80 cars a year and this is the first time in memory that we have had a car that is undriveable before it has finished our check-in process.

Fast Company should do a retraction. Or maybe that’s too risky?