• AUTOMOTIVE NEWS»
• AUTOMAKERS & SUPPLIERS»
• GREEN CARS»

• Article Tools:
• Print
• Email
• Order Reprints

Fisker Automotive, a hybrid-car startup, has hired the Finnish company that builds cars for Porsche to build its first production vehicle. Fisker said it will manufacture later models of the plug-in hybrid Karma sedan in the United States.

Valmet Automotive, of Uusikaupunki, Finland, currently builds some models of the Porsche Boxster and Cayman.

Fisker, of suburban Los Angeles, says the first models of the Karma will be ready in the fourth quarter of 2009. Earlier this year, the company said it plans to sign on 40 U.S. dealers by the time the Karma launches.

The four-seat Karma is expected to have a base price of $80,000.

"After an exhaustive global search, we are thrilled to have found the ideal manufacturing partner in Valmet Automotive," Fisker CEO Henrik Fisker said in a statement.

"Valmet offers us the quality and speed necessary to meet our production goals, and given that more than half of Fisker Automotive's sales are expected to be outside of North America, Valmet represents an ideal international foothold. We do have a strategic plan to utilize an American manufacturing site for future models of the Fisker Karma."