#Karma

Remember Fisker, which eventually became Karma? Well, the company is still kickin’, and a document made its way to a forum run by our parent company that suggests the company has several vehicles planned for over the next few years. Including, possibly, a pickup truck.

Fisker Inc. is reportedly in talks to go public after seeing how well other electric vehicle manufacturers (prospective or otherwise) have performed on Wall Street this year. In case you missed it, Tesla became the most valuable automaker on the planet this summer, while startup Nikola saw its shares explode through the ceiling ⁠— despite having never manufactured a single product for purchase.

It seems like complete madness, so it aligns perfectly with just about everything else that’s happened in 2020.

With the recent loss of the Chevrolet Volt, the term “range-extended electric vehicle” risks going the way of the passenger pigeon, closing the door on the era in which automakers tried to lure nervous buyers into an *almost* electric car that contained a gasoline engine only for sporadic electricity generation. The Volt had this system, the BMW i3 REx still does (but not in Europe), and the glitzy Fisker Karma popularized the term among the Hollywood elite.

The Karma met a swift end, yet lives on under a slightly altered name, all thanks to Chinese dollars. A new version of the exact same car — the Revero, sold by Karma Automotive — appeared in 2016. The California-based, Wanxiang Group-owned Karma is a low-production automaker, flinging out a few hundred examples of the Revero each year for the tidy sum of $130,000. The current car kept its GM-sourced 2.0-liter four-cylinder generator, which feeds two powerful rear-mounted electric motors. Combined power is 403 horsepower and a stump-pulling 981 lb-ft of torque.

As it prepares to debut a revamped Revero at Auto Shanghai 2019, Karma has detailed some changes to its ultra-lux green car. For starters, GM got the boot in favor of BMW.

The company formerly known as Fisker will now be called Karma Automotive, AutoGuide reported.

The name comes from the formerly defunct automaker’s only production model, which the company says it will relaunch in 2016 from its California factory. (Will it be called the Karma Karma?) The company, which was purchased by Chinese businessman Lu Guanqiu, may be shedding its namesake and ties with former founder, designer Henrik Fisker, in an effort to disassociate itself from the former car’s famous failing.

According to the report, Karma will continue preparing its second, all-electric model, reportedly called the Atlantic. Thankfully, the company’s website (The New Fisker redirects to Karma Automotive) tells us how much thought went into its logo without mentioning much about its new cars.

If you were hoping to pick up a new Fisker Karma, not so fast. The PHEV won’t be out until mid-2016, and it won’t be a Fisker, either.

If you’re Justin Bieber, Carlos Santana or Bob Lutz — and even if you’re not — you’ll be happy to know that your Fisker Karma will be more fixable in the event of a fender-bender or two, all thanks to parent company Wanxiang.

Last week, Rueters reported that Wanxiang, a Chinese parts supplier, had won the bankruptcy auction for Fisker Automotive. The bid was valued around $149.2 million. The deal comes to close after a bidding war between Wanxiang and Hybrid LLC — a group who includes Richard Li, a Fisker investor and Hong Kong billionaire. In November, Fisker asked for Hybrid Technology LLC to purchase the bankrupt company for $25 million, but creditors objected the deal in November and brought Wanxiang into the case in December.

Today Delaware, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross approved of the sale to Wanxiang. He stated that the auction “shows that a fair process is a good thing.”

Fisker did put its entire workforce, all 200 of them, on furlough, “while it continues to search for a strategic partner,” Reuters says. That search is not going so well. And quite possibly, the workforce will never come back.

When Henrik Fisker left last week, all we knew was that he “disagreed on business strategy” with the management, code for “board-room brawl, founder leaves in a huff.” Now we know where the disagreement was. It was whether to ask Uncle Sam or Auntie Zhang for money.

Not Dongfeng, but China’s Geely currently looks best positioned to profit from U.S. government largesse by buying beleaguered and DOE- funded plug-in car maker Fisker, Reuters reports. According to the report, “Zhejiang Geely Holding Group is favored to secure a majority stake in troubled U.S. electric car maker Fisker Automotive, according to two sources familiar with Fisker’s search for a strategic investor or partner.”

Also according to the report, red flags are sure to flutter over Fisker’s HQ in Anaheim, as Fisker “is currently weighing bids from two Chinese auto makers: Geely, the owner of Sweden’s Volvo, and state-owned Dongfeng Motor Group Co.”

It isn’t often one of the biggest news items coming out of NAIAS 2013 is from a tuning house … especially a tuning house nobody has ever heard of before. Attach the name Bob Lutz to a car, along with a brand new, fire breathing, tire shredding 6.2L LT1 V8 from the new Corvette, you are bound to turn some heads. Oh, and they wedged it into a Fisker Karma.

That’s Maximum to the Bob.

Fisker put production of its Karma plug-in hybrid on hold. Reason: It is running out of batteries. Bankrupt battery manufacturer A123 Systems has cut its output.

Fisker wanted to sell its $100,000-plus Karma plug-in hybrid in China by the end of this year. It’s not happening. Fisker “encountered a slight delay in obtaining final certification to sell cars in China” spokesman Roger Ormisher told Reuters. The company now targets “the first quarter of next year to take advantage of China’s rapidly growing market for luxury cars.” Good luck with that.

Fisker concluded its investigation into the fire that consumed one of their Karmas in Woodside, CA. According to a Fisker statement, neither the Lithium-ion battery pack, nor “new technology components, engine component packaging or unique exhaust routing of the Fisker Karma” were responsible for the conflagration. Rather, it was a lowly cooling fan, that, well, overheated. In the guessing game for the fire’s cause, TTAC’s independent accident investigator Ronnie Schreiber came closest when he suspected a low voltage unit.

A recall of approximately 2,400 Fisker Karma has been initiated.

Henry Ford was no gifted artist, yet he made a car worthy of the common man. William Durant didn’t especially like cars, but created a marketing and distribution empire that inspired us all. And while Henrik Fisker’s car-centric life isn’t fully wikipedia’d, the first creation of the company that bears his name is an object of wonder and inspiration. The Fisker Karma, like every concept from any auto show, is a dream car: flaws and compromises intact.