Fisker Seeks Federal Loan For New, Lower-Priced Plug-In to Follow Karma
By John O'Dell May 15, 2009
Fisker Karma designer Henrik Fisker, whose nascent car-building company already is planning a volume plug-in hybrid to follow the nearly $90,000 Fisker Karma (right)
, has asked the feds for funding to get it started.
Details are sketchy, but Southern California-based Fisker Automotive (eponymous is Henrik's middle name) is seeking an Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing loan "in the multiple hundred millions," said spokesman Russell Datz.
It would be used to finance a U.S. assembly plant and other costs of getting a successor to the Karma off the ground.
The new Fisker plug-in hybrid would be a four-door, probably priced in the $45,000-$60,000 range (Datz describers it as a "higher volume" car, not a mass market car), and would use a modification of the 408-horsepower, twin motor plug-in system developed for the Karma.
Fisker has raised more than $150 million in venture funding for the Karma, but figures his signature plug-in will eat all of that and more.
In today's moribund economy, the federal loan is a necessity if the less-expensive rechargeable hybrid is to be built.
With the loan, Fisker says he could be in production with the new car by the fourth quarter of 2011.
Production of the Karma is on track to begin at the end of this year with deliveries to start late in the late first quarter or early second quarter of 2010.
Datz said Fisker also is seeking a "small" federal loan from the ATVM program to "further advance" work on the Karma lineup - a sedan followed by a convertible - which is to be assembled by contract car builder Valmet in Finland but is being engineered in the U.S., at a facility in Pontiac, Mich.
John O'Dell, Senior Editor
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