AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
By John O'Dell September 20, 2011
Southern California-based Fisker Automotive says 200 of its $100,000 range-extended plug-in hybrid Karma sport sedans slated for U.S. customers are sitting in storage, awaiting air quality certification by the federal Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board. Although Fisker has gained publicity by identifying a few of its initial celebrity owners – including actor Leonardo DiCaprio and former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell – the company cannot begin selling the cars in the U.S. until the agencies certify that they meet federal and state emissions standards. Fisker spokesman Roger Ormisher confirmed the latest delay in U.S. deliveries in an interview at the Frankfurt auto show in Germany last week.
Company co-founder and chief executive Henrik Fisker initially had set September 2010 as delivery date for the cars but has rescheduled that at least four times since then – indicative of the hurdles a start-up automaker faces on the road from plan to production. Ormisher said the company anticipates final smog certification soon. Some Fisker dealers in the U.S., however, have said they aren’t expecting cars until late October or early November. “We expect to have a demonstrator by mid October and cars to sell the next month,” Fisker Santa Monica sales manager Mark Harding told AutoObserver. The dealership has pre-sold about 100 of the cars and has an additional waiting list of “40 to 50 people,” he said. Harding said Monday that he’s been told the first U.S. cars are now being shipped and will be warehoused at a facility in New Jersey until EPA certification is received.
Fisker has begun delivering cars to European dealers and customers, Ormisher said. The company says it has more than 3,000 advance orders globally for the Karma, which uses a 402-horsepower, all-electric drivetrain and a grid-charged battery pack augmented by an on-board gasoline engine that serves as a power generator to keep the electric motor running after the battery pack is depleted. The car, which can travel up to 300 miles on its charged 20 kilowatt-hour battery and one tank of gas for the generator – starts at $96,000 and can run to more than $110,000 in various trim levels. It qualifies for a $7,500 federal income tax credit in the U.S. Fisker has secured a $529 million federal advanced technology vehicle program loan and more than $600 million in private financing. It intends to begin building a new line of smaller, more affordable ($47,000 base before incentives) range-extended, plug-in hybrid cars in a former General Motors plant in Delaware next year.
John O'Dell: is an AutoObserver Senior Editor. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.
View the original article here
0 comments:
Post a Comment