Henrik Fisker with his plug-in hybrid, the $87,900 Karma, which is set for a debut later this year.
Start-up plug-in hybrid manufacturer Fisker Automotive will close its suburban Detroit development center and consolidate design, engineering and other operations at the company’s Southern California headquarters, TheDetroitBureau.com has learned.
The move will make it easier for the company to move forward by having all key corporate operations collocated under one roof, Fisker contends, but it does come as a small but measurable setback for Michigan, which has been struggling to hang onto its automotive job base.
Less than 30 Fisker staff jobs will be impacted by the move, said a company official, and all are being offered the opportunity to relocate to Irvine, the Los Angeles suburb where Fisker is based. A separate source said it is not clear how many employees will accept the transfer, despite the bleak job situation in Detroit.
Fisker’s Michigan facility, in the suburb of Pontiac, had been set up to allow company designers and engineers to work alongside counterparts from the various suppliers helping develop the automaker’s new products. The first of those models, the plug-in luxury sports car, the Fisker Karma, will go into production within the next year.
With the Fisker facility in Michigan closing, most supplier staff will now move back to their own corporate offices.
“Having our entire team in California ensures greater efficiency and speeds up development of our new plug-in hybrids,” said Henrik Fisker, CEO. “We are expanding quickly to work on both Karma and Project NINA programs at the same time.”
The fledgling automaker also promised that as it gets operations up-and-running, it will increase employment “dramatically.”
The company has some aggressive plans. Along with the Karma, it plans to develop a second product line, codenamed Project Nina, which is set to go into production at 2012 at a former General Motors plant in Delaware. That facility was purchased with the help of a federal loan, part of a 2008 program designed to encourage the development of greener automotive technology.
Fisker Automotive has also raised $115 million in a new round of private funding aimed at bringing Project Nina to market. The second Fisker plug-in is described as a “family of vehicles” – sources say a sedan, convertible and crossover are in the works – which will be priced around $39,900 after a $7,500 federal tax credit.
Henrik Fisker has also told TheDetroitBureau.com that the automaker plans to develop an even more affordable model that would come to market mid-decade. It would also used plug-in technology.
Plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles, or PHEVs, are similar to more conventional hybrids in that they can capture energy normally lost during braking and coasting and store it in a set of rechargeable batteries. But PHEVs utilize larger batteries using the latest lithium-ion technology. That allows them to run for extended periods solely on battery power.
Other makers getting into the field include Toyota, Ford and General Motors, though GM prefers to call the Chevrolet Volt, which it is introducing later this year, an extended-range electric vehicle.