Sandy's toll: 15,000 cars and counting

The damage tally from Superstorm Sandy continues to roll in. The latest estimate is that Toyota, Chrysler, Nissan and Honda plan to scrap 15,000 new cars damaged. The National Automotive Dealers Association says that number could grow to 200,000 cars.

Fisker Automotive was hit hard. The company lost 338 of its plug-in hybrid Karma sedans at a port in Newark, N.J., including 16 that burned in a fire caused by salt water.

Fisker says that it did “a thorough investigation witnessed by NHTSA representatives,” and that the cause of the fires was residual salt damage inside a Vehicle Control Unit. Fisker says corrosion from the salt water caused a short, which led to a fire when the Karma's battery fed power into the circuit. The control unit is an off-the shelf component used by other automakers and is found in several non-hybrid vehicles. Each Fisker Karma costs about $103,000.

Nissan has estimated that more than 6,000 vehicles are too damaged to sell, while 4,000 Toyota and Lexus vehicles also need to be checked. Toyota told Bloomberg it expects to scrap about 3,000 of those units.

Honda and Acura are expected to write off 3,440 vehicles, but the actual number will be determined by dealers and their insurance companies, a spokesman told Bloomberg. About 500 additional cars that Honda was prepping to export were also damaged. The company says it doesn't have an estimate of the damage just yet.

Chrysler lost about 750 vehicles, while Hyundai and Kia lost about 600 combined.

Many automakers' dealerships also lost power in the storm, making sales and loss estimates even harder to predict. NADA says there are 886 dealerships in New York and 463 in New Jersey.

By Jake Lingeman