So on a nice Saturday afternoon in July of 2015, Jenkins and his wife set out in his new hybrid electric Fisker Karma.

They made it three miles up the canyon road before the dreaded dashboard lights blinked on: The car had overheated. "I ended up with a classic picture of my wife standing next to this gorgeous car, in gorgeous scenery, with the hood up and coolant just pouring out of it," Jenkins says.

Back at work Monday morning, Jenkins got right to griping, like you'd expect from someone who'd lost a nice weekend to a shoddy product. But he wasn't moaning to a sympathetic cubicle mate. Jenkins leads the engineering efforts at Karma Automotive.