Fisker Changed Its Name To Karma And Received Financial Backing From Chinese Billionaire

With a brand new name, as well as financial backing from Chinese billionaire Lu Guanqiu, electric-car maker Fisker Automotive may have a shot at a successful future.

The California-based company is changing the Fisker name to Karma, which is also the name of its $115,000 plug-in hybrid coupe. Clearly, Karma the company is attempting to alter its fate after its unsuccessful previous incarnation as Fisker, when the company failed to repay $139 million in U.S. government loans and eventually filed for bankruptcy.

Now, with Lu’s backing, Karma has 300 employees. The company plans to relaunch its car next year, even in the face of an increasingly crowded field of competitors and the threat of cheap gasoline, which has already adversely affected sales of hybrid-electric cars and electric vehicles.

The company’s Chief Marketing Officer, Jim Taylor, says that these aforementioned challenges are the reasons that it’s good for Karma that Lu is focused on the long term.

“He’s in this for the long haul,” said Taylor, who once ran the Cadillac brand for GM. “He also doesn’t want to lose a fortune.”

Lu is the 70-year-old founder and chairman of auto-parts maker Wanxiang Group. He started his career making bicycles and says that he sees electric cars as a crowning achievement. According to Taylor, Lu wants to develop cars that can help to solve China’s massive air pollution problems.

The Karma is a plug-in hybrid, which has both an electric motor and a gas engine. It can travel 350 miles on a charge and a tank of gasoline, according to Taylor, and the car will run 50 miles using only the electric motor. The vehicle will compete with Tesla, whose Model S car and Model X SUV sell in the same price range. Model X deliveries started this week, with high-end versions that cost in excess of $100,000.

Taylor said that the Karma’s biggest attraction is its styling, making it an exclusive fashion piece for wealthy buyers. Karma has recreated its website with the new name and a badge for the hood of the car that no longer bears the Fisker name. The new site boasts that the cars are “beautiful, clean and memorable”.

Fisker sold 2,000 Karmas before going out of business. The company was started by former BMW designer Henrik Fisker and it counted Leonardo DiCaprio and Justin Bieber as customers, until reliability problems and troubles with its battery supplier, A123, destroyed the project. In addition to celebrity endorsements, retired GM vice chairman Bob Lutz said that he thought the Karma was so good looking that he started a company called Destino that packs Corvette engines under the hoods of slightly modified Karma bodies.

“It is unquestionably one of the most beautiful four-door cars ever and withstands the test of time,” said Lutz.

The company’s CEO Tom Corcoran said that as it gets ready to start producing Karmas, the automaker will continue to develop the Atlantic, a smaller model, and eventually a pure electric vehicle.

“You can’t be focused on the short term with this,” explained Corcoran. “Chairman Lu has great vision and he is very committed to batteries and the electrification of cars.”