At this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, Karma Automotive, an American luxury EV company, debuted their latest hypercar; The Karma Kaveya.
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The Kaveya, which took part in the famous Goodwood hill-climb can achieve up to 1,000 horsepower and has a fully electric power train. The Keveya is equipped with a 120-kWh battery pack that provides a targeted range of over 250 miles. The vehicle can DC fast charge from 10-80% in approximately 45 minutes.
According to the brand, the Karma Kaveya aims to redefine luxury and performance, designed to accelerate from 0-60 mph in under three seconds and reach a top speed of 180 mph.
Frankie Youd spoke with Nicholas David, vice president of global design, Karma Automotive, to learn more about the vehicle, the design itself and future plans.
Frankie Youd (FY): Could you provide some background on Karma Automotive and what you are showing at Goodwood Festival of Speed?
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By GlobalDataNicholas David (ND): Karma Automotive is based in California. The design and R&D facility is in California, as well as the factory near Palm Springs. We’ve been going now for about eleven years. I’ve been with the company for about three years.
The brand is now moving towards the ultra-luxury space. I think that’s going to be great for us; we want lower volume, a higher margin and far more exclusivity.
What we have at Goodwood this year is the Karma Kaveya. There will be around 1,800 units made and sold. There might be some different variants. What we have here today is the four-motor electric version; it will also come as a two-motor, rear-wheel drive. The two-motor starts at about $300,000 and the four-motor will start at about $400,000, but you will be able to spec it accordingly.
What we want to do with Karma Automotive is get a lot of personalisation, to have people come in and configure it.
It’s also really good for people to see if moving at this event. It’s good to see the car running up the hill. People can see it and say: “wow look at that!”
What was the design process for this vehicle?
With the Kaveya we were trying to design a supercar that no one looks at and thinks “oh, it looks a bit like something else”. It looks completely unique.
When we are at the design studio, we have a ‘no’ list, which is a list of attributes that other car companies are doing, especially supercars, that we say we will not do on our car. I think as designers, we can come up with something new, but sometimes we fall back on what we feel is safe in some areas.
Some of the designs we came up with were phenomenal but we said no, too close to something else. We really did make a point of trying to be unique.
I think as designers, we can come up with something new, but sometimes we fall back on what we feel is safe in some areas.
I think we have come up with something very unique, clean, very simple. We have this master line; it goes from the rear fender, around the cowl into the other fender. We call it a comet line. That is a signature now for all our Kaveya models; all the other surfaces drape from it.
Within the design industry I think there’s been this bit of ‘anti-design’ where there are lots of slashes, weird forms, strange volumes, to make it ‘new’. I think we really wanted to concentrate on the proportion and then reduce, reduce, reduce.
People with a V10, V12 want noise, and you have to have some theatre with that. So, what is our theatre? We’ve removed all the door seals, and made them hidden seals; the windshield wiper panel slides back and forth to hide the wipers, which is also good for aerodynamics. To open the door you have a touch sensor on the panel; at the back of the vehicle at high speeds the spoiler comes out, and slides in when you want it to.
Could you discuss the design of the interior?
The interior that you see on the car today is more the demo car interior that we’ve been using. The screens hide away when you don’t want them, or they reduce down. The armrest moves to expose the cupholder, when you get in it is a very clean and simple design. The car allows you to hide elements and bring them out when you want.
We are also looking into passenger side screens. Do clients want to have minimal or maximum interaction? We are listening and thinking about it; a lot of clients are saying it would be nice for this model. There are some things that we do have to consider doing when we listen.
Does the company have a global reach or is it focusing more on the US?
The current car we’re producing, the Revero, is available in mainland Europe. It’s been homologated for there, as well as North America. The split is a bit more biased towards America. This one will be globally homologated.
We’ll be showcasing in China, Middle East, Europe and America. The Amaris will probably be a global vehicle, but they will remain left-hand drive. The Gyesera, is homologated for North America currently, but it can be adapted for Europe.
We definitely are trying to become more of a global brand
We definitely are trying to become more of a global brand, to have them in UK and everywhere. We’ve been building up the dealership network. We’ve got a lot of dealers in North America already and in Europe.
What is the reaction to a hypercar which is electric?
When we first showed it, I think it was at the peak of ‘let’s go electric’, and there was really good influence on those early adopters. However, in the industry news at the moment it’s about pulling back away from electric a little bit and going more towards maybe for hybrid as a stepping stone.
A lot of the people who have put down a deposit already have a lot of ICE supercars, and they were okay with it, because they wanted something different; they want a different experience with each car they have.
They like a performance, the looks, and the drama.
This model is supposed to be full electric; we’re not going to do an ICE version. We’ve also tried to hit a bit of a nice niche area, because you have Hyundai, BMW, Volkswagen, down in the more affordable EV vehicles.
This falls in, as I said, about the $300,000-$400,000 mark, so it’s a bit more of a niche area where people usually own quite a few cars, it’s not their only one.
They like a performance, the looks, and the drama.
