Fisker’s Karma to be powered by Canadian battery system
Thursday, March 12th, 2009
There’s a reason why Vancouver-based Advanced Lithium Power Inc. has a message on the home page of its Web site that reads, “ALP is expanding! Click here for career opportunities.”
As you’ll read in this Los Angeles Times blog entry, Fisker Automotive of Irvine, Calif., is using lithium-ion battery packs from Advanced Lithium to power its highly anticipated Karma plug-in hybrid. The Karma, at a cost of about $88,000 (U.S.), has Tesla-like looks but costs about $20,000 less. That’s partly because, as a hybrid (that is, like the GM Volt is has a gas-powered range extender that’s used to charge the battery while driving), its battery pack is less than half the size of the Tesla pack. First deliveries of the Karma are expected in spring 2010. About 1,300 have already been preordered.
Fisker, according to the LA Times piece, will make a “sizable” cash investment in Advanced Lithium and will get two seats on the Canadian company’s board.
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
