Karma Wants To Put America Back On The Ultra-Luxury Map

The company's boss waxes poetic about the good ol’ days of American luxury and vows to bring them back.

Karma Ivara GT-UV Design Study

Photo by: Karma Automotive

Andrei Nedelea

By: Andrei Nedelea

Aug 21, 2024 at 10:00am ET

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Karma's third model will be a fancy-looking coupe SUV with electric or range-extender power.
The Kaveya's electric coupe's interior was revealed at The Quail.
Karma plans to redefine the ultra-luxury segment by building lavish vehicles on its Software-Defined Vehicle Architecture.

Karma Automotive was present at The Quail to show off a trio of vehicles and expand upon its plans to become a leading ultra-luxury automaker. It had already shown two of these future models, but now it’s equipped one with its production interior and also revealed a third, which could look like the Ivara GT-UV concept.

The second part of the Ivara study’s official name hints at its scope: it is a grand touring utility vehicle designed for effortless continent-crossing. It has a coupe-like canopy and a long Ferrari Purosangue-like hood, and it conveys a feeling of opulence and luxury.

Sedans and coupes are great, but nowadays, if you want to make it in the luxury EV space, you need some sort of high-riding vehicle. That’s where the Ivara comes in with the promise of either full EV or extended-range electric powertrains. The range extender option is a necessity to future-proof the model in the face of potentially cooling EV sales.

Gallery: Karma Ivara GT-UV Design Study

Karma Ivara GT-UV Design Study

Source: Karma Automotive

The company, which rose out of the ashes of the original Fisker Automotive, still sells an evolution of the Fisker Karma as the Revero. Like its predecessor, the Revero is only available as a range-extender electric car, but it fixes all of the original car’s big problems. Since 2019, it has featured a 1.5-liter turbocharged three-cylinder BMW engine as its generator to keep going after its 80 miles of electric range from its 28-kilowatt-hour battery has run out. Its total range on a full tank of gas and battery is 360 miles.

The other big piece of news from Karma was the unveiling of the production-spec interior for the Karma Kaveya electric coupe. This stunning two-door, revealed last year, looks a bit like a futuristic Lexus LF-A, but it has over 1,000 horsepower from its fully electric powertrain, 0 to 60 mph in under 3 seconds, and a top speed of around 180 mph. Thanks to a large 120 kWh battery pack, its range is estimated at around 250 miles.

Karma intends to first launch a lower-powered rear-wheel drive version of the Kaveya in 2025, with 536 horsepower going to its rear wheels. The dual-motor top version will arrive in 2026.

The original Fisker Karma will also be further evolved into the fully electric Karma Gyesera, which will share its battery and range figure with the Kaveya coupe. It is expected to cost around $200,000, and the company reportedly wants to sell 2,000 units over five years of production.

Gallery: Karma Gyesera

Karma Gyesera

Marques McCammon, the president of Karma Automotive, seems very confident that his company has what it takes to become a global luxury car leader. He said “Auburn, Duesenberg, and Packard are Karma Automotive's inspiration because they harken back to an era we aim to repeat, an era when American ultra-luxury set the benchmark for the world” concluding that “The intellect of Karma's vehicles will be several steps ahead, creating distinctive, unique, and engaging automobiles which return a valid paradigm of value that's been absent from the ultra-luxury segment for nearly a century.”

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The Kaveya and Ivara will be built on what the company calls its Software-Defined Vehicle Architecture (SDVA), which it co-developed with Intel Automotive. Karma said it plans to reveal new concepts for models it plans to build at six-month intervals, so we should see something new in early 2025.

Karma has been owned by China’s Wanxiang Group since 2014. It’s based in Irvine, California and is currently only building the Revero at its 500,000-square-foot Moreno Valley production facility. According to the Orange County Register, it employs about 300 people, has 32 dealerships, of which 22 are in America, and has sold about 1,000 vehicles since the Wanxiang takeover.