Start- ups to keep an eye on

roads by 2020. Whether it makes it — as well as developing the 950km battery range it boasts of in its marketing — will be interesting to watch. KARMAAUTOMOTIVE Karma Automotive is a start- up that has sprung from the remnants of Fisker. Wait a minute. Fisker? Wasn’t that some crazed Dutchman’s supercar project back in the mid- 2000s? The sort of extravagantly drawn, low- slung, no- expense- spared performance sedan that graced the covers of car magazines for all of six months before disappearing into nothing? Yeah, that’s the one. But wait; because it seems there is more. We’ll include Fisker in our quick rollcall of notable startups because . . . well, it is starting again.

Fisker ( under the stewardship of Henrik Fisker) developed and sold the world’s first plug- in electric supercar in the form of the Fisker Karma. It was briefly a big thing after its 2008 debut, until Tesla filed a lawsuit, claiming Fisker and his development team stole intellectual property relating to the Tesla Model S in order to develop the Karma.

The courts found Fisker had done no wrong, forcing Tesla to pay Fisker’s million- dollar legal bill. But while momentarily in the clear, the carmaker then had issues with its battery supplier, forcing it to reneg on promised vehicle deliveries while the banks froze its line of credit.

By 2012, when Hurricane Sandy destroyed 338 Karmas stored at a port in New Jersey, and Fisker’s insurance company refused to pay out on the reported US$ 30m claim, the company was all but done. And Henrik Fisker was cast forever as the Andrew Ridgely to Elon Musk’s George Michael.

Spool forward to today, though, and things appear to be on the boil once again for the company formally known as Fisker. Now under Chinese ownership ( Wanxiang Group purchased Fisker for US$ 149.2 million after the former’s bankruptcy . . . it also purchased the battery supplier), Karma Automotive unveiled its first post- Fisker concept late last year.

The Revero is a luxury electric hybrid sedan that looks not- unlike its ancestor. And, despite previous issues, it even features similar ( but upgraded) battery technology and charging architecture.

Karma says the idea of a Fiskerlike performance sedan still appeals to many buyers looking for something different ( er, yeah . . . see the Tesla Model S for proof of that we guess), so it is anticipating producing 3000 Reveros at its California factory. Let’s just hope those batteries last the distance.