Fisker Karma production stoppage reaches 6 months, company claims “sufficient supply”

One result of the litany of problems that Fisker Automotive suffered in 2012 – floods, fires and recalls – was a production stoppage of the plug-in hybrid Karma that has already lasted six months. Fisker spokesman Roger Ormisher told AutoblogGreen that the delay was due to an attempt to renegotiate the Valmet production contract and A123 Systems’s bankruptcy proceedings.

He said:

Valmet traditionally shuts down for Scandinavian summer break from mid July to mid August. When they returned, our new management team wanted to renegotiate the contract with them and during this period, A123 started to enter bankruptcy. We took the prudent decision to conserve our battery stock and we already have sufficient supply of Karmas through Q1 of this year. By that time we hope to have renegotiated our battery supply with A123’s new owners Wanxiang.

Despite that conservation of batteries, the truth is that Fisker isn’t getting new batteries from A123 right now. One interesting side effect of the Destino project, Bob Lutz told AutoblogGreen, is that Fisker could get some battery packs back when they are taken out of already-built Karmas and, one day, put them into new vehicles. In August, Henrik Fisker said that Fisker had built “about 1,900” Karmas. Apparently, that’s a comfortable enough margin, for now.