"At $39,000 per car you can get up there pretty fast. We are not going to announce and introduce to the market to lose money," Ray Lane, managing partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and a major Fisker investor was quoted as saying by Reuters.
By "up there", Lane was referring to the target the company set for itself: produce 100,000 of the lower-cost plug-in hybrids. The only way to get there is to make the PHEV by using cheaper, at most $15,000 battery packs for the hybrids.
The current "in the works model", the Karma, is scheduled for release next year in May or June, after entering production in late 2009. In july, the company said it has received some 1,400 orders for the sports PHEV.
The car costs 78,780 euros, without VAT, and will be sold in Europe through a dealership network of 40 stores. It is powered by both an electric powertrain and a 2.0l turbocharged gasoline engine. It has a range 482 km (300 miles) and is built to achieve up to 100 miles per gallon, if used for distances less than 50 miles/day. The Karma can reach 100 km/h (62 mph) in less than six seconds, with the top speed rated at 201 km/h (125 mph).
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