There's a new player in the electric-car game. Well, actually, it's an old player, but with a new boss and new financing. The company used to be called Fisker, after its founder, designer Henrik Fisker, and it once created an electric car called the Karma. Now the company is called Karma, and the car, updated and upgraded, is the Karma Revero.
Karma was purchased out of Fisker’s bankruptcy in 2014 by Chinese auto parts company Wanxiang Group and it’s now set up in Costa Mesa, California.
The company has only one product, the Karma Revero, which it says will go on sale before the end of the year, if it meets its quality targets. MSRP on the Revero is said to start around $130,000.
The Revero is a plug-in hybrid, with two lithium-ion battery-powered electric motors driving the rear wheels and a General Motors two-liter, turbocharged Ecotec four-cylinder gasoline engine up front. The company expects a fuel mileage rating rating of around 54 MPGe. By comparison, that's not quite as good as the BMW i8.
A 240-volt charger is built in and can recharge the batteries in about three hours. Direct-current charging can restore the batteries to an 80 percent charge in about an hour and a half or less.
So other than being a competitor of current and future BMW plug-in hybrids, what does the Karma Revero have to do with BMW? Two things. First, according to the Wall Street Journal, the car uses BMW electric vehicle control and charging systems.
The second thing is how the Revero looks. The front has a very kidney-grill-ish look to it, with a round company badge on the center of the hood’s leading edge. Does any of that look familiar? Now look at the lines of the coupe-like four-door. Does it remind you of any other car?
Here’s a hint. The Karma Revero was designed by Henrik Fisker. Henrik Fisker designed the BMW Z8 seventeen years ago. Now do you see a resemblance? Perhaps a more modern take on the classic Z8 lines? If not, then maybe it has an Aston-Martin look to you, since Fisker also worked for that company.
There are still some ”ifs” with which Karma must deal before we will see a real Revero on the street. The car needs to be thoroughly updated from its earlier Fisker incarnation. The production line must be set up. Quality issues must be addressed, and the all-important financing must continue. If all that happens, we could see a new entry into the electrified car market; this one with a little BMW DNA.—Scott Blazey
[Photos courtesy of Karma.]
