Tesla is about to have some competition again in the luxury electric car sector as Fisker announces it is in the preparation stage for a new model it hopes to have on the market for 2017.
The company, known for its Karm electric vehicle a few years back, hopes this will spark a turnaround. It recently transitioned to new ownership.
The company was founded in 2007 by Henrik Fisker, but the California-based company has faced a number of issues, including a patent lawsuit by Tesla, which was settled in Fisker's favor. Since then, however, it has seen massive layoffs and in 2013 was forced to file for bankruptcy.
Fisker himself has since resigned and the company was bought by Wanxiang Group, which hopes it can pick up the pieces and begin selling the Karma model and others in the very near future. It believes that it can compete against Tesla, which has made major inroads into the electric vehicle sector.
Pin Ni, Wanxiang's American division president, says he hopes the company can solve a number of the problems Fisker has faced over the years with its vehicles. "At Fisker, the biggest issue is to solve the problems. There are about 250 bugs in [the Karma] we need to de-bug."
He also says that the company hopes to get the Karma back onto the market within a year, if all the programming issues can be resolved. Ni said the company won't put the car on sale until all the issues are fixed and the car is near perfection.
"I often say that Wanxiang can afford to make cars, but Wanxiang cannot afford to make bad cars," he said.
It's perfect timing, too, as Tech Times has reported Tesla is ready to break ground on a new battery factory in the U.S. that should help bring down costs as well as give the company more opportunity to manufacture more vehicles at a time. Currently, California and Nevada appear to be the front-runners for the massive undertaking.
For much of the past two years, Tesla has had little to no competition in the luxury electric vehicle market, so a resurgence of Fisker could help to speed innovation in the sector as well as drive prices down somewhat as more than one company is on the market.
