Karma Automotive is getting ready to roll out a rebranded luxury hybrid vehicle.
The Wall Street Journal reported the former Fisker Karma will be rebranded as the Revero plug-in hybrid automobile.
The assets of the former Fisker Automotive were purchased by Wanxiang group, a China’s largest auto parts maker. The company has been expanding into electric buses and other vehicles.
Karma is now moving the assembly line, which has been closed for more than three years from Finland to an assembly site in Southern California.
Sales and production could resume next year for the automobile, which operates with an electric drive train and a small gasoline engine.
The Journal story stated that the trouble-plagued mechanical systems of the Karma under the former owner are getting an overhaul. Technology from automobile maker BMW is being used.
The distinctive exterior design of Fisker Automotive founder Henrik Fisker is being retained.
The Revero is the latest chapter in the history of Fisker, which received a federal loan and a state financial package in return for building a plug-in hybrid, known as the Atlantic at the former GM Boxwood plant near Newport.
It was also believed that Fisker would eventually transfer production of the Karma to Delaware.
Work on the plant was halted after the company burned through cash and the federal government halted loan funding. Meanwhile, the Karma suffered from battery problems and mechanical woes.
Fisker ended up in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, with Wanxiang winning a brief bidding war with another Chinese company for Fisker assets.
Those assets include the Boxwood plant, which the company has retained. New Castle County, at one point, indicated it might buy the plant.
There has been no word of late on Wanxiang’s plans for the Atlantic and the Wall Street Journal story made no mention of the vehicle.
The Revero enters a crowded market that includes Tesla, which now offers pure electric vehicles and has hundreds of thousands of orders for a compact vehicle that could appear late next year, at a price starting at $35,000.
Pricing for the Revero has not been released.
