Karma Automotive, the company once known as Fisker Automotive,->ke1074 is prepared to re-enter the automotive market with a new luxury electric car that it hopes to formally unveil in July or August 2016. The model has been dubbed the Revero and while it will look exactly the same as the car it is succeeding – the Fisker Karma – everything else about will be completely different. For instance, the Revero will make use of electric vehicle->ke1030 control and charging systems from BMW AG->ke178 as part of an agreement to the sides reached in 2015.

Speaking with the Wall Street Journal, Karma’s chief marketing officer, Jim Taylor commented on the upcoming return of the company, which will now be under the ownership of Chinese auto parts company Wanxiang Group. The company decided to rename itself in part because it wanted to avoid any kind of association with its previous incarnation, which was forced to file for bankruptcy back in 2012 because of a flawed business model.

Other than the name of the company and the model itself, pretty much everything about Karma Automotive is different. For instance, production has been moved to California from Finland. The automaker currently has 500 employees, most of whom are located in Costa Mesa, California. It also has a new 556,000-square foot factory in Moreno Valley, also in California. Even the Rivero is being overhauled to become a more rounded model than the Fisker Karma ever was. According to Taylor, the Rivero will have “serious, major upgrades throughout the electronics systems, wiring, charging, battery.”

No mention of price was mentioned but Taylor did say that Karma plans to start taking orders for the Rivero shortly after its scheduled unveiling in July or August 2016. In the meantime, the automaker has put its attention on holding events for owners of the Fisker Karma->ke3016 and its engineers are providing service and system upgrades for the old models.

Continue after the jump to read the full story.

Why it matters

What happened to Fisker Automotive and the Fisker Karma remains as one of the most unfortunate things to happen in the world of electric cars. But it is what is. Mistakes were made and it happened. All that’s left is to move on, which is what that the rebranded Karma Automotive is doing now. I don’t know for certain if the company’s going to be successful this time around, but I do know that it has the financial stability that its predecessor didn’t have. That’s one important it has going for it. That stability is important because Karma can now really divert its full attention into developing its products without having to worry about not having enough money to do it.

Personally, I’m optimistic that Karma won’t face the same problems that Fisker had in 2012. But does that mean that it’s going to be successful? I’d like to think so, even though I’m fully aware that the landscape of the electric car market is far different today than it was four years ago. Suffice to say, it’s a lot more competitive now with other start-ups like Faraday Future Inc., NextEV, and Atieva Inc. all now in the picture. All these companies are still in their infancy, but each of them have the financial backing to remain viable in today’s market. Then there’s Tesla, which has completely owned the electric car market for the better part of recent years. Just recently, it managed to get 400,000 pre-orders for its third model, appropriately named the Model 3. It’s two previous models, the Model S and the Model X are both garnering healthy sales volumes.

So yes, the market is far more competitive these days and that in itself means that there’s no guarantee that Karma Automotive will become the company it was supposed to be in its previous incarnation. But the important thing is that Karma is in a better place to put up a fight, a place it was not quite able to reach before.

Fisker Karma

Read our full review on the Fisker Karma here.