Fisker Karma will be produced in Finland by Valmet

GM is not being threatened only by its economical conditions. When it was going a little better, it had the chance to be the first company to release a plug-in hybrid that was powered only by electricity, the Chevrolet Volt. But even at those better times the company only promised to release Volt in 2010, no sooner than that. Well, this gives us a hint on why GM is facing problems. Lack of speed in decisions is certainly one of them. This is the only reason Fisker will offer the first modern production hybrid with this configuration, the new sedan Karma. And it will be helped on this by Valmet, the same company that builds Porsche Cayman and Boxster, in Finland.



Production of the revolutionary vehicle, which a price tag of about US$ 80,000, is set to start by the last quarter of 2009. The first 99 units will be numbered and painted in the same colour of the car presented at the Detroit Auto Show this year.

With a range of 80 km only with its batteries charge, Karma is able to run in day to day basis with no need of fuel. If the way is longer than that, a small petrol engine starts to operate in order to charge the batteries and extend the car range a lot further (to about 1,000 km or more, depending on the size of the fuel tank).

Top speed is expected to be above 200 km/h, and the car will be able to sprint from 0 to 100 km/h in less than 6 s. For a luxury sedan, these figures are just fantastic, especially considering the car can be so fantastically clean as well.












Source: Fisker and Valmet