Fisker Automotive says it has selected a site in the United States for the factory that will produce the $39,900 plug-in hybrid codenamed Nina.
Founder and CEO Henrik Fisker said the company has reached a deal to build as many as 100,000 of the cars annually and he will announce the specific location of the factory "soon." Fisker made the announcement at a conference in Washington D.C., and company officials could not be reached for comment. According to Dow Jones Newswires, the company was said to be considering sites in Delaware and California.
The company received a $528 million loan from the Department of Energy last month to finance engineering of the Karma plug-in hybrid and begin developing Nina, a four-door, five-passenger plug-in hybrid we could see as soon as 2012. Although the $87,900 Karma (pictured) will be built in Finland by contract builder Valmet, Fisker has long planned to build a more "affordable" sedan in the United States.
Fisker hasn't said much about Nina but has told us it will fall between the BMW 3-Series and 5-series in size and feature "very radical" styling. It also will use a stamped steel chassis and body panels (the Karma is aluminum) to save money. The nascent automaker, which has raised $170 million in venture capital from the likes of Kleiner Perkins Caufiled & Byers, says it expects global sales to “exceed 100,000 units annually.”
Henrik Fisker made the same claim when we interviewed him in August, and said his company would hit that target within five years. Such a figure would make Fisker Automotive larger than Porsche.
Although some reports say Nina will cost $48,000, Fisker told us in August the car will cost $39,900 after the $7,500 federal tax credit for electric vehicles.
Photo of the Fisker Karma at Mazda Laguna Seca Raceway: Jim Merithew / Wired.com
