Start-up to launch hybrid sports car

Fisker Automotive, a US start-up that is launching a rechargeable hybrid sports car, plans to build five more models by 2016, its chief executive said.

Henrik Fisker said the carmaker planned to build two more models based on its Karma plug-in sports car, plus another three mass-market cars at a former General Motors plant in the US.

“We want to create a car company that only makes plug-in hybrid vehicles,” Mr Fisker said. “We’re going to have a range of six vehicles in the next five years.”

At the Paris motor show Fisker, based in Irvine, California, unveiled its first factory-built Karma roadster, which is made by contract manufacturer Valmet in Finland and will go on sale next March.

Fisker is one of two fledgling carmakers exhibiting in Paris that are seeking a first-mover advantage in premium plug-in cars by utilising US government money and cheap manufacturing assets sold after the Detroit industry’s recent crisis.

In late 2012, Fisker will in begin production of its mass-market Nina model at a former GM plant in Wilmington, Delaware that it bought for $20m from Motors Liquidation Company, which acquired GM’s “bad” assets after it filed for bankruptcy last year.

“It would be $400m if we had to build this plant from scratch,” Mr Fisker said. The company, backed by private investors, has received two low-interest loans worth $529m from a US Department of Energy credit line for low-emission vehicle technology.

Its competitor Tesla Motors, which is already building $109,000 electric roadsters, will from 2012 produce its mass-market “Model S” at another former GM plant in Fremont, California for which it paid $42m. “There’s never been a better time to buy automotive equipment in the industry,” Elon Musk, the company’s founder, chief executive and largest shareholder, told the Financial Times. “We’re getting first-rate equipment for pennies on the dollar.”

Tesla, which in June floated on Nasdaq, aims to begin delivering the Model S by mid-2012. Like Fisker, it has received approval for a Department of Energy loan, worth $465m.

The two companies face similar challenges as Germany’s big luxury carmakers move towards building luxury electric and hybrid cars. BMW, the industry’s largest premium carmaker, will launch an electric car under a new sub-brand from 2013.

Both companies say they are prepared for the competition. “BMW are doing a little city car,” Mr Fisker said of its planned electric model. “They don’t want to compete with their big vehicles.”

Mr Musk said Tesla was aiming to sell only 20,000 cars a year, a small share of the 2m per year global luxury market.

He added: “We are only talking about 1 per cent of the premium market. We suck if we can’t do that.”