Fisker Karma might go back into production in mid-2015

Two other vehicles /4/enter production in the next few years

Detroit News reports that Fisker is doing much better under its new Chinese owner. A Chinese auto parts conglomerate called Wanxiang won the competitive auction for what was left of Fisker and purchased the company with cash a while back.

Wanxiang is now saying that it hopes to relaunch the Karma plug-in hybrid by mid-2015.

“We don’t know if we would keep Fisker Automotive as the company (name),” said Fisker President Roger Brown, a managing partner at Nashville, Tenn.-based Summit Strategic Investments who has worked with Wanxiang for years. “The cars are the rock stars.”

In addition to bringing the Karma back to production, Wanxiang is also looking at other cars. Fisker could have a station wagon version of the Karma in production by 2016 called the Surf. Another car that Fisker is looking at is a cheaper vehicle called the Atlantic.

“Wanxiang is not flashy. They bought this company, they paid cash for it, they don’t put any debt on their company and they execute,” Brown said. “They didn’t buy the company to export the technology to China. … They bought it because they want to build a great car company.”

Brown says that before the car can go back into production, Fisker has to find a CEO and a new company HQ.

“We’re looking for a (permanent) CEO in the next 90 days,” Brown said. For engineering and other work, “we are currently looking at a lot of the prior employees. We have a database of people that have reached out to Fisker over the years looking for employment. … We’ve been flooded with people that want to come back.”