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Karma, the company, is starting its effort in earnest to revive sales of its Revero—the car that started life as the ill-fated Fisker Karma.

According to the federal government, Karma sold 231 of the cars in 2018, well down from the 2,667 that Fisker sold in the car's first year on the market.

That's partly the result of a paucity of dealers. The company says it has 18 stores—in addition to its new Moreno Valley, California, design center—worldwide selling the cars. Those dealerships are in the U.S., Canada, and Chile.

Now as the company gets ready to sell the updated 2020 Revero GT, with a longer 65-mile electric range and a new, more powerful gas engine from BMW, Karma announced that it will open new luxury dealerships in 13 U.S. cities and 19 new countries.

Last month the company unveiled its new retail environment with the new design center at its Moreno Valley, California headquarters. There, it says, customers will be treated to a new “VVIP treatment” where they can tour the factory, customize the features they want on their cars, and meet the workers who hand-built them.

It's an effort to become something over a latter-day Rolls Royce (without the room), or a would-be cutting-edge Aston Martin, with Southern California style and craftsmanship, rather than that of the Old World.

Artist's impression of Karma Customer Experience Center

Among the new world markets, Karma says, will be Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and China. It did not specify the 13 new U.S. cities where it plans to operate.

At the same time, Karma gave a first look at the interior of its new all-electric Pininfarina-designed SC1 roadster, which was revealed at the Shanghai auto show in April, along with a video showing the designers' artistic inspiration and the process of building the prototype.

The SC1 is expected to give rise to Karma's first electric car, but no date has been set. Karma is also seeking production partners in China for more mass-market models. In between, the company also has plans to build a plug-in hybrid SUV based on the Revero.

GM’s Cruise Is Valued At $19 Billion — Does That Make Any Sense?

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Published on June 6th, 2019 |

by Zachary Shahan

GM’s Cruise Is Valued At $19 Billion — Does That Make Any Sense?

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June 6th, 2019 by Zachary Shahan

The self-driving vehicle startup Cruise that GM acquired in 2016 was recently valued at $19 billion after another round of investments.

That puts Cruise’s valuation at more than half the value of Tesla, and 38% the value of GM as a whole (as of this moment).

That implies, of course, that certain portions of the investment world expect a lot from Cruise, and think it is well on its way to a promising future.

I find the whole thing tremendously interesting. I understand that some auto industry players think Cruise as the perfect approach to autonomous driving, but others think it has fatal flaws and will never outcompete what Tesla is developing. Fine and good — there are differences of opinion in the auto world, and more specifically in a burgeoning new new industry that most consider to be the future. But it still blows my mind a little bit that very little money is invested in the idea Tesla is the world’s autonomous driving leader while Cruise is being valued at $19 billion.

First, though, a few more details on the news. GM raised “an equity investment of $1.15 billion from a group comprising institutional investors, including funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., and existing partners General Motors, SoftBank Vision Fund and Honda.” The result: “This investment increases Cruise’s post-money valuation to $19.0 billion, inclusive of SoftBank Vision Fund’s previously announced investment commitment. In the last year, Cruise has secured capital commitments totaling $7.25 billion.”

From what I’ve gathered, Cruise’s autonomous driving architecture is much more similar to Waymo’s than Tesla’s. We’ve never done a deep dive on Cruise versus Tesla Autopilot/Full Self Driving, but we have published these comparisons of Tesla’s system with Waymo’s:

Tesla Autopilot Hits 1 Billion Miles! & Why Tesla Autopilot Is The Top Approach To Autonomy
Deep Dive Into Tesla’s Autopilot & Self-Driving Architecture vs Lidar-Based Systems

Aside from those, the following may bring some useful light to the overall story:

Tesla vs. Self-Driving Competition — New MIT Video
Elon Musk Calls Lidar “A Fool’s Errand” … & Other Autonomous Driving Experts Starting To Agree
Tesla Autopilot Miles Soaring
Tesla Autonomy Day: What We Learned
Tesla Autonomy Day Video & Dozens Of Quotes

See more in our Tesla Autonomy Day archives.

Is Cruise worth $19 billion? Well, I certainly couldn’t tell you. Should it be worth $19 billion when Wall Street hardly values Tesla’s autonomous driving leadership? Well, that seems crazy to me, but such is the market today.

About the Author

Zachary Shahan Zach is tryin' to help society help itself (and other species). He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director and chief editor. He's also the president of Important Media and the director/founder of EV Obsession and Solar Love. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, and Canada.

Zach has long-term investments in TSLA, FSLR, SPWR, SEDG, & ABB — after years of covering solar and EVs, he simply has a lot of faith in these particular companies and feels like they are good cleantech companies to invest in. But he offers no professional investment advice and would rather not be responsible for you losing money, so don't jump to conclusions.

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