Karma bets on EREVs and ultra-luxury for its latest reboot

Marques McCammon has a lot to prove. He’s president of Karma Automotive, a position he began in 2023, taking the lead of a company that’s had a turbulent history, to say the least. He has an aspirational goal: to make Karma into America’s ultra-luxury vehicle manufacturer. “There is not an Aston, Ferrari, McLaren, or Lamborghini class of vehicle in the US,” he says.

This would be yet another reboot for a company born out of Henrik Fisker’s failure. No, not that failure, but the one that came before. The Fisker Karma launched in 2012 and was immediately heralded for being one of the best-looking and most-innovative grand touring cars on the planet.

Praise didn’t lead to success. The brand went bankrupt just a year later, its assets sold off and relaunched as Karma Automotive in 2016. Its primary product is still basically that same car, though it’s gone through a few name changes. What was originally the Karma became the Revero, then fell victim to an alphanumeric rebranding to GS-6 in 2021. Today, it’s just Revero again.

It’s a turbulent history for a car with an interesting architecture, a series hybrid design that paired relatively small battery packs of various sizes smaller than 30kWh, depending on configuration, with a 1.5-liter, three-cylinder engine sourced from BMW.

That engine, though, didn’t turn the wheels. It only provided enough additional electricity to extend the Karma’s range out to 360 miles. A few other cars, like the Chevrolet Volt and BMW i3, experimented with this approach, but it never really caught on.

Today, the series hybrid is suddenly trendy, though now referred to as an extended range EV or EREV. Ram is positioning its Ramcharger, with an onboard 3.6-liter V6, as a solution for big towing range without a gigantic battery. Likewise, Scout Motors says its optional Harvester EREV is the solution for potential buyers suffering from premature range anxiety.

But Karma Automotive, née Fisker, was doing it before it was cool, and McCammon says the EREV’s time has finally come. He points to the Chinese market as proof. “BYD came in with EREV, their highest selling units were EREV vehicles, and they were eating market share away from all the BEV guys, Tesla in particular,” he says. (BYD sold 4.2 million vehicles globally in 2024, more than twice as many as Tesla.)

McCammon hopes to capitalize on that momentum, refocusing the company’s efforts around EREVs. Karma had previously announced the launch of a fully electric model called Kaveya, ditching the range extender for a bigger battery and 1,000 horsepower worth of electric motors. That car, now, isn’t coming until 2027.

McCammon says this isn’t a delay, but a response to market demand. Karma will bring out its full EV after other players in the premium luxury performance space bring theirs to the party. “We know that a certain company that likes the color red and prancing horses is coming out with an EV. So we’re going to move our EV sports coupe to be just behind them,” he says.

If you’re going to fast-follow, Ferrari’s a good one to shadow.

So it’s out with the Kaveya and in with the Amaris, which debuts today. It’s an EREV like the Revero but powered by a new engine. The three-cylinder, BMW-sourced unit is out, replaced by a four-cylinder that McCammon says offers more power and character.

“So you think of Shelby’s Cobra, the Viper, the side port of exhaust is kind of an American signature,” McCammon says. “So that’s something we’re going to bring back.”

In the past, the small-displacement engines in series hybrids would drone along at a set RPM — a speed chosen for efficiency, not for acoustics. The result is a grating sound that manufacturers traditionally try to hide, not highlight.

That engine will charge batteries with a new chemistry optimized for frequent charging and discharging, and the car will offer full power until there’s less than five miles of range left in the battery pack. “If I can’t take it to the track and do a couple of laps around it and enjoy myself, then it’s kind of a waste,” McCammon says.

The sourcing of those batteries, though, could prove problematic. While Karma builds its own battery packs at its Moreno Valley, California, factory, it buys the individual cells from a supplier. McCammon says that Karma will stop sourcing cells from China by the end of the year, and while the new supplier is closer to home, it’s not domestic.

“I honestly did not anticipate wondering about tariffs within the Americas,” McCammon says, a common refrain right now across numerous industries. The current trade war of retaliatory tariffs with US neighbors to the north and south could complicate Karma’s plans.

That could result in higher prices, but the Amaris will be a substantially more expensive car regardless. Though its overall architecture and design are similar to the Revero, it’s set to be more premium across the board, including a body made of carbon fiber rather than aluminum, better materials on the interior, and a host of new tech.

There’s a showy new 4K display inside the cabin and a new system architecture for the drivetrain system relying on fewer, more powerful processors. McCammon says those chips would only come from a US source, but given his time at former Intel subsidiary Wind River, and given Karma’s prior agreements with the company, the Amaris having Intel inside seems like a safe bet.

The Amaris is set to go on sale late next year, when it will join another new model, the Gyesera, a long and low grand tourer that will replace the Revero. Gyesera was initially planned to be an EV, but it will instead stay the EREV course like its predecessor.

Gyesera goes into production sometime before the Amaris, meaning Karma is going to have to soldier on for the rest of 2025 with the Revero. This year marks its final run of 160 cars, 30 in a higher-end Invictus trim, with upgraded Ohlins suspension, bigger wheels, and enough other goodies to raise its price to $185,000.

That’s a significant bump over the base Revero’s price of $123,100 and a lot of cash for a car that’s basically 13 years old. But then you can spend as much on a new Tesla Model S, a machine that is likewise substantially the same as it was in 2012.

But it’s the Amaris that really marks the true way forward for the brand. Next year feels like a long way off, given how long the company has been promising new and exciting things. Skeptical? McCammon says he doesn’t blame you, but he’s here to change your mind.

“Normally, in the auto industry, we hold our plans really close to the vest, and we only let you see it right when we’re about to deliver. I’m choosing to put the vision out there, so everyone sees exactly where I’m going, and basically put my neck on the line,” he says. “Hold me accountable.”