Fisker Developing Low Cost Model

The ink is hardly dry on the announcement for Fisker's new range-extended electric vehicle, the Karma and yet the company head Henrik Fisker is already talking about a successor. The company has come such a long way since its original inception.

Originally the company sold coach built vehicles like the Tramonto and Latigo CS. The Tramonto was based on the Mercedes-Benz SL and the Latigo CS on the BMW 6-Series.

Smartly, the company used those models to produce a profit that would help investors kick down the cash to develop dedicated vehicles like the Karma.   Henry Fisker's dream is being realized!

Like Tesla, the company has applied for Department of Energy loan guarantees. Fisker hopes to use that money to develop a new low cost model, using the same technology as the Karma. Just how low cost? We don't know for sure, but he has said in other articles that he'd like to develop one in the $30k range. Good luck with that one, that will be extremely hard to pull off.

He says that start up manufacturers finally have a chance to succeed against the large auto manufacturers. He said that 30 or 40 years ago that wasn't possible, but the new realities of alternative fuels have changed the scene dramatically. We'll see about that! It certainly would be nice if some new, different players could establish themselves.

What's next in Fisker's future? The Karma (of course), then a convertible model and a variant based off the platform. If Department of Energy funding is received the car will be on the road in 29 months. Hopefully they get it! I'd love to see Tesla and Fisker continue to go at it. Although I think it's more of an imperative at Tesla to get the funding at this point.