The Riverside Press-Enterprise
Karma Automotive turns 10 with eyes on new luxury cars
The company will unveil three new models beginning late this year through 2026
Southern California’s nascent electric carmaker Karma Automotive hits a big milestone this year, and it’s one many people probably didn’t see coming.
The Irvine-based luxury automaker is turning 10. Inside those years are some bumpy beginnings.
From a startup to bust and then reborn again (twice), the company is eking out a name in the luxury car world with three new models hitting the roadways this year and into 2026.
After two rocky years before the pandemic struck in 2020, the automaker is ready to start adding jobs again at its headquarters in Orange County and manufacturing plant in Moreno Valley.
The company today counts about 300 workers, but President Marques Mccammon said
Karma eventually will need to hire an additional 300 to 500 employees to meet production demands. To make that happen, the automaker is looking to create workforce development and training initiatives with local universities to prod students into the green transportation economy.
“We will be designing prototypes for all of our vehicles, and as that portfolio grows we’ll add more engineers and technicians, and there will also be more area suppliers,” Mccammon said.
Startup days
Karma’s path has not been without challenges. Its origins in 2007 as Fisker Automotive met an early demise after its battery supplier A123 Systems went bankrupt. Wanxiang, a Chinese automotive conglomerate, bought the assets of both businesses in 2014 for $400 million and renamed the company Karma.
The company’s first EV was the Karma Revero. Its debut was hit some snags. In April 2019, Karma issued a recall and stop-sale order on all Reveros because of a rollover sensor flaw that could disable the car’s sidecurtain air bags.
The resulting financial difficulties prompted the layoff of 200 employees at its Irvine headquarters in November 2019 and 60 more the following year.
To put the company back on track, several executives were let go last year. Mccammon, formerly with Chrysler Corp. and then Daimler-chrysler, was brought on board to lead the company’s operations.
Karma engineers, designs and manufactures its electric and range-extended electric vehicles in Southern California. The company maintains a 500,000-square-foot production facility in Moreno Valley and the vehicles are sold throughout North America, Europe, South America and the Middle East.
“North America is our biggest market by far,” Mccammon said. “We have 32 dealerships, and 22 of them are in North America.”