Before delivering one hybrid car, a new one is promised. Is that a plug-in hype-brid?

Henrik Fisker, the founder and chief executive officer of Fisker Automotive, said his fledgling auto company could have a smaller, less expensive vehicle with broad appeal ready for market within 29 months if it succeeds in obtaining funding from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Fisker Automotive is one of the companies vying for funding under a special Department of Energy loan program approved in 2007 designed to help carmakers improve fuel economy. The program is separate from the federal bailout of GM and Chrysler and has attracted the interest of several carmakers and battery makers. It has also attracted a number of unproven start-up companies with little or no auto experience.

The upheaval in the car business now unfolding represents “the most dramatic change in the history of cars,” Fisker said following an appearance at the Automotive Press Association in Detroit.

“It’s the first time in 30 or 40 years where new start-up car companies have a real chance. They really haven’t had any chance in the last 30 or 40 years because they would just come up with another gasoline-powered car and nobody needs that,” said Fisker, whose firm is preparing to launch a new plug-in hybrid in early 2010. 

“What you’re seeing now is these start up companies like Fisker Automotive – we have the technology – that we’re actually more experienced than the big car companies,” said Fisker, whose new automotive company is based in Irvine, Calif.

“You can compare that to guys that started Google or Apple with i-phone. You have these things happening when you have a dramatic new technology. You find people are willing to try new technology or even a new design,” Fisker said.

Fisker has already lined up dealers to sell the four-door Fisker Karma, with its $88,000 price tag, in early 2010, but he has more ambitious plans – including a lower-priced vehicle that uses the same plug-in hybrid technology.

“We’re first doing the four-door and then we’re doing the convertible and then we’re planning some third derivative off the Karma platform. Then we’re planning a high volume vehicle for a lower price. We’ve applied for a department of energy grant. If that loan comes through we’ll have this vehicle on road in 29 months,” Fisker claimed.

“We’re setting up to do all the interface with all our suppliers and we’re gearing it up to start work on the next project, which will be a much higher-volume car and will have different construction than the Karma. We will use our learning on how to integrate the technology.

“A start up company starts from zero, so there are no old habits and no old parts that you have to use. There is no old anything. We don’t have to be careful of our current customers or any brand, Fisker said. There is, of course, no learning form experience either, since it doesn’t exist.

Last month, Fisker Automotive received an additional $85 million in venture capital funding for the development and manufacturing of its plug-in hybrid automobiles. The new money represented the largest injection of capital into Fisker since its founding in August of 2007.

The investment by Eco-Drive and Kleiner Perkins, one of Silicon Valley’s leading venture capital firms, “validates our vision of joining together the advances in technology for plug-in hybrid powertrains with the eco-chic beauty and eco-conscious comfort of the Fisker Karma,” Fisker said.