An American Lion

The Fisker Karma

This one is blue, but it’s actually green, and it’s a Fisker.

Never heard of it? Neither had I, until I was stumbling through another confusing day on the Internet. Sounds like someone remembered how to build, market, and sell to the American people:

Fisker Automotive plans to fire up its production line in May and have the first Karma plug-in hybrids in showrooms by September.

Founder Henrik Fiskerrevealed the production version of his superluxe car here at the Los Angeles Auto Show and said the first customers will be driving them by this time next year. Some 1,500 people have placed orders for the $87,900 Karma plug-in hybrid, which will be built in Finlandby Valmet Automotive. Fisker said he wants to have as many in driveways as possible by the end of 2010, but some who have already placed deposits may have to wait until 2011.

“The line at Valmet starts in May,” he said. “We’ll see how fast we can ramp up production. What I can say is if you haven’t placed an order by now, you won’t see a car until 2011.”

Fisker Karma Interior (experience tells me this would be an excellent car to use while Ghost Riding the Whip)

Fisker says the company is currently crash testing cars on its own. Federal crash testing will begin once the production line starts. And though he’s still got a lot of work to do if the company is to hit its goal for the Karma, Fisker is already looking ahead to several new models.

Fisker says project engineering for Project Nina, his mid-sized plug-in hybrid sedan, will begin in January now that the Department of Energy has approved a $528.7 million loan to help get the car built.

“The DOE loan means we’re stepping in the accelerator yet again,” Fisker said.

Nina will be built entirely in the United States at a former General Motors plant in Wilmington, Delaware, that Fisker Automotive bought in October. The company will spend $175 million refurbishing the plant to build the car. Nina is slated to cost $39,900 after the $7,500 federal tax credit for EVs and plug-in hybrids. Fisker says Nina will see production in mid-2012 but we won’t see what it looks like for another year or so.

I’m all for giving them a loan, provided there’s a viable business model there in order to get the money back, with a slight bit of interest added on, of course. Just the fact that there are plans to build them here in this country, fine and dandy with that as well. Now, given that no one has any money, we’re in debt up to our eyeballs, and treading water with an overabundance of cars flooding the American market, you have to admire the chutzpah in starting a car company. The only people who will be able to afford these cars are whoever just won American Idol and government contractors and neither are a reliable economic indicator.

Would I buy one? Sure. This thing looks amazing. I’d want to drive one, but yes. I think I would buy one.