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Karma Automotive made a last-minute addition to its luxury vehicle line-up last month in response to the shaky consumer market for electric vehicles.
The Irvine-based automaker introduced on March 20 the Amaris, its first 2-door coupe that will feature an extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) powertrain. The company expects to begin production of the new model in the fourth quarter of 2026. Its starting price hasn’t been revealed.
“It is a step that goes in between our sedan, the Gyesera, and the Kaveya, our super coupe, which we pushed out one year to allow the market to stabilize in terms of the market’s confidence with electrification,” President Marques McCammon told the Business Journal.
The Kaveya, whose base price is expected to be around $300,000, was originally set to launch as Karma’s first two-door coupe next year. It is now scheduled for 2027. The decision to reschedule was made late last year, according to the president.
McCammon said they decided to create a different vehicle from its existing platform and modified the Amaris to be about 9.7 inches shorter than Karma’s Revero with a two-door configuration, which will later allow for other variants like a convertible.
“Because we’re not changing the platform as much…, we can get it to market fast, so we can basically fill the space that we created when we pushed the Kaveya out without compromising our brand proposition,” he added.
Karma cites “changes in the near-term market demand for EVs” for the automaker’s swerve in strategy and the Kaveya delay.
“We saw the market shifting and the sentiment around electrification, especially in the exotic market, was softening,” McCammon said. “Strategically, we said, ‘if we introduce the car that’s the halo of our brand into a market that’s not really welcoming of electric vehicles, then we run the risk of having it flame out really fast.’”
Earlier this month, rivals reported a drop in deliveries.
Tesla Inc., the most valuable publicly traded EV automaker, said first quarter deliveries declined 13% to 336,681. Irvine-based Rivian Automotive Inc. said deliveries fell 36% to 8,640.
Vehicle Roadmap
According to Karma’s roadmap, the company is currently manufacturing the Revero sports sedan, which started production last year as an updated version of Karma’s hybrid sedan GT from 2016.
Thirty Revero vehicles have been made this year so far with 160 total planned for 2025. Customer deliveries are scheduled for next year.
Twenty have been shipped to dealers, meaning vehicle sales revenues have only recently begun. As a private company, Karma declined to comment on current financials.
With sales underway for the static model of the Revero, a more custom trim dubbed Revero Invictus will go on sale in the second quarter of this year. Pricing starts around $127,000 and can go for about $147,000 when ‘normally equipped.”
Next up is the 4-door Gyesera that is targeting the start of production in the fourth quarter this year and will take the place that is currently occupied by the Revero. The Gyesera was previously unveiled as an electric vehicle and will instead arrive with an EREV powertrain, which is a form of hybrid technology.
The Amaris, featuring a new generator and a new battery, will follow the Gyesera at the end of 2026 entering production before Karma’s final vehicle in its five-year plan – the fully-electric Kaveya super-coupe.
Previously, Karma reported about 500 U.S. vehicle sales in 2022. It halted production in mid-2023 to “put a clear focus on quality,” McCammon told the Business Journal back when he was appointed president almost a year ago. He quickly began planning a new vehicle line-up after he joined which led to adding the Gyesera and Kaveya.
As of now, McCammon said Karma is no longer worried about ideation and is now focused on executing its product plan.
Staying Power
The Amaris is estimated to have an acceleration from 0 to 60 mph at less than 3.5 seconds with an estimated top speed of 165 mph. Its price range, which remains to be announced, will fall between the Gyesera and Kaveya.
McCammon said that Karma was deliberating on how to introduce the Kaveya vehicle according to its original timing as late as December due to concerns of public reception and opinion, especially following the election cycle.
“It was a question of whether or not the name plate was going to have staying power,” McCammon said. “What we need as a new car company is when we introduce something, we need it to create lift and for that lift to be stable.”
“Between the candidates, there was two very different views on how electrification fit into the marketplace and what role it would have long term,” he added. “Post the election, it’s gotten a little bit even harder to read.”
Production-wise, current plans include building about 500 to 600 units of the Gyesera annually until it is replaced by production of the Amaris in 2026. The newly introduced model will have a similar production plan, McCammon said pointing to “balancing exclusivity of the product with a scale that allows us to be competitive.”
When looking at competitors like the Bentley GT coupe, “we think that the demand could be much higher than what we have planned for,” he added. “The first challenge for us is to put it on the ground.”
Karma intends to put 250 vehicles onto the market this year between production of the Revero and Gyesera models.
The automaker has also outlined the next five years but will keep plans close to its chest for now, according to McCammon.
“I want to be bold and be held accountable. I don’t want to be foolish,” he said.
Showcase Event at Karma HQ
At a showcase event known as Create Karma, held at its Irvine headquarters last month, Karma Automotive announced the launch of its Clean Transportation Technology Collaborative that partners with regional business leaders in various industries to provide students opportunities related to workforce development in automotive, software and clean energy.
Members of the program include Cerracap Ventures, Orange County Business Council, University of California, Irvine and others.
In turn, Karma committed a little over $2 million in assets such as cars, hardware, batteries and access to software for participating students to use when learning. These resources will be deployed in high school and university systems.
“Our viewpoint is whether we’re building a workforce for ourselves or we’re building a workforce for the ecosystem – or frankly, even building people who are going to start the companies to become our competitors – either way you do it, we need to have more growth and movement in (those) areas,” President Marques McCammon said. “We need to make sure that we have a generation of people who are excited about it and equipped to be effective in that space.”
Also at the event, which was attended by more than 200 people, Karma demonstrated new technology including a demo of its new Karma Harmony Software-Defined Vehicle Architecture (SDVA). Karma also showed the progress of its work with Intel on a software defined powertrain that was originally introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this year.
The automotive company plans to make the SDVA solutions available to other manufacturers to use and license as a new business-to-business offering.
“We (also) debuted our inverter with a new controllable compute platform that allows us to optimize the efficiency of our electric drive system in near real time so we can extend the life of the battery,” McCammon said, noting that the automaker is “highly vested in extended range electric vehicle (EREV) technology.”
Karma integrated its inverter software with AI technology from Intel and is testing the solution in prototype.
Between 250 and 300 people typically work at Karma with a majority in Irvine. With about a dozen employees in Michigan, the rest are at Karma’s 550,000-square-foot assembly plant in Moreno Valley.
Although Karma doesn’t disclose revenues publicly, McCammon said: “We have the capital to maintain our solvency as we have for the past 10 years without fail.”
—Emily Santiago-Molina