LOS ANGELES: Karma Automotive unveiled a new electric car on Nov 11 at the Wynn Concours in Las Vegas.
The 1,180-horsepower Karma Kaveya, a name inspired by a Hindi term meaning "poetry in motion,” will come in two variants projected to reach 100kph in less than three seconds.
Pricing was not announced but will be comparable to vehicles from Aston Martin and McLaren, says Marques McCammon, president of Karma Automotive.
The two-seat Kaveya has a projected driving range of more than 250 miles and a 45-minute charge time to 80% full on a 400-volt charger.
"We are aspiring for Karma to be an embodiment of American success,” said McCammon, who joined Karma Automotive in March after terms at Saleen automotive and Aptera Motors, among other manufacturers.
"I want us to be to the automotive (equivalent) of what Tiffany is to luxury goods.”
The coupe is the latest effort from the Irvine, California-based brand with a history of struggling to produce vehicles.
Sales of its Revero hybrid have been stymied by multiple recalls and stop-sale orders; the company sold 15 of them in 2022. Plans for an electric pickup truck announced in 2020 never materialised.
Karma Automotive formed in 2014 after a Chinese auto-parts supplier Wanxiang Group paid US$149.2 million to buy assets such as designs and a hybrid powertrain in a bankruptcy auction from Fisker Automotive.
Founded in 2007 by Henrik Fisker and Bernhard Koehler, Fisker Automotive was the electric-car manufacturer that produced the Fisker Karma before a bankruptcy in 2013.
In 2016, Henrik Fisker separately launched Fisker Inc., which sells the Fisker Ocean electric SUV.
McCammon stopped production entirely in Q1 at Karma Automotive’s half-million-square-foot factory in Moreno Valley, California. The facility lacked the controls needed to ensure quality and repeatability, he said.
"When I investigated, I found that you had a company that had billions of dollars invested in it; they had developed vehicle platforms; they had developed technology; they had developed software,” he says. "They just hadn’t brought it all together into a cohesive, continuous business model.”
The factory is being upgraded and will restart manufacturing in 2024, a spokesman said via email.
It recently began producing 120-kilowatt high-voltage batteries and will triple its employee count from the current 45 by the end of next year.
When the factory does start producing cars again, volumes sent to the company’s 23 dealers nationwide will remain lower than those attempted by other EV manufacturers.
"I can do 3,000 to 5,000 units in a year, and I can have a strong and successful business,” McCammon said.
"I don’t have to be anywhere near the kind of volumes that Lucid is chasing, which means I don’t need the same expenditure and capital, and I don’t need the same infrastructure.”
In October, Lucid Group Inc.’s output fell 29% from the previous quarter, raising questions about its ability to meet a full-year production target of more than 10,000 EVs.
Deliveries of the Kaveya will begin in the fall of 2025, the spokesman said.
