The company’s CEO, Henrik Fisker, already announced he wants to build here the “Project Nina” sedan, scheduled to enter production in 2012.
The car will cost less than $40,000 and the company estimates annual sales of 115,000 vehicles by 2015. This will be the first car built by Fisker in the former GM plant, with the second-generation Karma sedan to be also produced there from 2016. Production in Wilmington will not begin until 2012.
Fisker received this April a $529 million loan to develop plug-in hybrids and to retool the Wilmington facility. The money came from the US Department of Energy, who said the plant would restore 2,000 jobs in Wilmington, as well as many other jobs within nearby suppliers. Before being shut down by GM, the facility was in charge of manufacturing the Pontiac Solstice, the Saturn Sky and the Opel GT.
As for the most expected Fisker model, the Karma, the PHEV is scheduled to be launched by the end of the year, with a price tag set at $87,900. The car made its public driving debut in mid-August last year, running two laps on the renown 11-turn Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca course. It managed to reach a top speed of 100 mph (161 km/h) while on the race track, without using any gasoline.
According to SAE J2841 Electrical Usage Statistics, some 821 million gallons of gasoline will be saved and 8 million tons of CO2 offset from sales of Fisker plug-in hybrids through 2016.
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