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The Karma Revero Takes Its Final Bow—But the Brand Isn’t Done Yet

The last Karma Revero has rolled off the line, closing the book on one of the most circuitous stories in modern automotive history. Last week, Karma Automotive quietly announced it had completed final production of the Revero, a sedan whose roots trace back more than a decade to the ill-fated Fisker Karma.

If that name rings a bell, it should. The original Fisker Karma arrived in the early 2010s with Hollywood flair, ambitious tech, and unfortunate timing. Fisker Automotive collapsed into bankruptcy in 2013, but the car itself refused to die. Its assets were scooped up, reworked, and reborn as the Karma Revero, which officially entered production in 2016 under new ownership.

To mark the occasion, Karma shared images of the final car on its social channels, describing it as a tribute meant “to honor where we began and illuminate where we are going.” The company didn’t dive into build specs or production numbers, but the send-off model wears a deep green exterior paired with a tan interior—a tasteful, almost nostalgic farewell for a car that’s lived multiple lives.

Mechanically, the Revero remains an unusual offering even by today’s standards. It’s an extended-range electric vehicle, pairing a battery-powered drivetrain with a gas engine that acts solely as a generator. Total output checks in at 536 horsepower and 550 pound-feet of torque, enough to hustle the 5,000-plus-pound sedan to 60 mph in about 4.5 seconds. Karma claimed a total driving range of up to 360 miles, including roughly 80 miles of pure electric operation—respectable numbers, even now.

But while the Revero itself is done, its underpinnings aren’t headed for the scrapyard just yet. Karma is preparing the Gyesera, a sedan that rides on the Revero’s aluminum spaceframe and uses the same 28.0-kWh battery. Power drops slightly to 566 horsepower—30 more than before, but with four fewer pound-feet of torque—yet Karma says the new car will hit 60 mph in a claimed 4.0 seconds. A redesigned cabin and refreshed styling aim to modernize what was, at times, a visibly aging platform.

Then there’s the Amaris GT Coupe, which represents Karma’s most aggressive statement yet. The two-seat grand tourer will combine a turbocharged four-cylinder generator with a larger 41.5-kWh battery, good for a claimed 708 horsepower and 676 pound-feet of torque. Karma says it’ll sprint to 60 mph in just 3.2 seconds, territory that puts it firmly in modern super-GT company.

What’s perhaps most surprising is that Karma Automotive is still standing at all. When Fisker first introduced the Karma nearly 20 years ago, the extended-range EV concept felt like a technological hedge—too electric for traditional buyers, too gas-powered for early EV adopters. At the time, the market simply wasn’t ready.

Today, the landscape looks very different. Scout has extended-range EVs in the pipeline, Ford has announced an onboard generator for the F-150 Lightning, and Nissan is moving toward a series-hybrid setup for the next-generation Rogue. As enthusiasm for full battery-electric vehicles cools in the U.S. and elsewhere, hybrids—and especially clever ones—are finding renewed favor.

That shift could finally play to Karma’s long-held strengths. The Revero may be gone, but its philosophy suddenly feels relevant again. And after everything this brand has survived, it wouldn’t be wise to count it out just yet.

Source: Karma Automotive

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From Podiums to Police Tape: The Motorsport Hoard at the Center of Ryan Wedding’s Case

In the world of performance machinery, provenance is everything. A race win, a championship season, a rider’s name etched into a frame—those details turn metal into mythology. Which is why the latest seizure tied to Ryan Wedding reads like a motorsports hall-of-fame inventory collided head-on with a federal indictment.

Wedding, a former Olympic snowboarder, has been a recurring name in international law-enforcement circles for years. Now the spotlight has swung hard toward his alleged taste in speed. After authorities last month seized a Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTR valued at around $13 million—one of just six roadster versions ever built—a coordinated multinational operation has netted a staggering cache of rare motorcycles reportedly worth as much as $40 million.

The bust involved Mexican authorities working alongside the FBI, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the Los Angeles Police Department. That kind of alphabet-soup cooperation doesn’t happen for petty theft, and the photos released so far suggest a collection assembled with obsessive focus. While officials haven’t published a complete inventory, Motorsport reports that the haul includes Ducatis ridden by Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo, Andrea Dovizioso, Loris Capirossi, and Andrea Iannone, along with Marc Márquez’s 2012 Moto2 title winner and Rossi’s championship-winning 125cc Aprilia.

If true, it’s a museum-grade lineup—the sort of two-wheeled royalty usually seen behind velvet ropes or under factory spotlights. Paired with the CLK-GTR—essentially a Le Mans refugee with license plates—the collection paints a picture of someone drawn not just to expensive things, but to the rarest expressions of motorsport success. The irony, of course, is brutal: machines built to celebrate competition and precision now cataloged as evidence.

Wedding’s trajectory couldn’t be more stark. Born in 1981, the Canadian once represented his country at the 2002 Winter Olympics. Today, he appears on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. Prosecutors allege he ran a transnational drug-trafficking network that moved hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico and Southern California, ultimately reaching Canada and parts of the United States. Authorities further claim he ordered murders to protect the operation, conspired against witnesses, and laundered money through assets ranging from real estate to high-dollar vehicles.

The U.S. State Department has raised the reward for information leading to his arrest to $15 million—among the largest currently offered—underscoring how seriously officials view the case. Investigators believe Wedding may still be hiding in Mexico and warn that he is armed and dangerous.

For car and bike obsessives, it’s tempting to fixate on the hardware: a CLK-GTR roadster is the kind of unicorn that rewrites auction catalogs, and a grid of championship-winning race bikes is the stuff of late-night bench-racing fantasies. But the deeper story is less about horsepower and more about contrast. This is what happens when elite performance, immense wealth, and alleged criminality intersect—when trophies of human achievement become footnotes in a criminal docket.

In the end, the machines will survive. They’ll be authenticated, appraised, maybe eventually displayed again, their stories scrubbed clean of this chapter. The case surrounding them, however, is still accelerating toward its own uncertain finish line.

Source: Motorsport

News

China to Kill Retractable Electric Door Handles—And the Rest of the World May Follow

For years, retractable door handles have been one of the auto industry’s favorite party tricks. They slide out, flip open, glow, retract, and generally remind you that you’ve paid good money for something “futuristic.” Starting in 2027, however, China has decided it’s had enough of the theatrics.

Under new regulations from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, all new passenger vehicles weighing up to 3.5 tons will be required to use mechanically operable door handles. Not as a backup. Not as an optional emergency release buried under a trim panel. Mechanical access must work from both inside and outside—even in the event of total electrical failure or after a serious crash.

In other words: when things go wrong, the door has to open. Period.

The rule is aimed squarely at retractable and push-button electric handles, the kind popularized by Tesla and now widely used by BYD, Xiaomi, and a growing list of EV startups eager to shave drag coefficients by the third decimal place. These designs were sold as aerodynamic wins, typically claiming a range improvement of around 0.6 kWh per 100 kilometers. In the real world, that’s a rounding error. In an emergency, it can be fatal.

Chinese regulators didn’t come to this conclusion in a vacuum. The decision follows a series of deadly accidents in which electrical failures left occupants trapped inside their vehicles. Two incidents involving the Xiaomi SU7 electric sedan—one in Chengdu and another in Tongling—are frequently cited. In both cases, witnesses reportedly couldn’t open the doors after impact. The mechanical emergency releases existed, but they were hidden, poorly labeled, and difficult to access under stress.

That’s the core issue. Retractable door handles work beautifully—until they don’t. And when they fail, they fail in ways that are unintuitive to panicked occupants and rescuers who don’t have time to hunt for a concealed lever behind a speaker grille.

China’s new regulation cuts through the design fluff and lands on a simple principle: a door is a safety device first and a styling element second. If the power is out, the car is crushed, or the electronics have gone dark, you still need to be able to pull something and get out.

The impact of this rule won’t stop at China’s borders. As the world’s largest car exporter, China effectively sets hardware trends whether the rest of the industry likes it or not. Designing separate door systems for domestic and international markets is expensive and inefficient, especially for high-volume platforms. Expect Chinese automakers to standardize mechanical handles across global models—and expect Western manufacturers to take notes.

Tesla, which helped make flush electric handles mainstream, already faces growing scrutiny over usability in emergencies. BYD and Xiaomi, both aggressively expanding into overseas markets, will now have little incentive to keep electric-only designs alive. Even legacy automakers chasing EV minimalism may quietly rethink whether sleekness is worth regulatory friction—and bad headlines.

There’s also a broader lesson here for the industry’s tech-forward obsession. Cars don’t need to be less advanced. They need to be more honest. When a feature saves two watts of energy but adds a layer of confusion during a crash, it’s not innovation—it’s misprioritization.

Come 2027, China will force a reset. Door handles will go back to doing what they’ve always done best: working every single time you need them. And if that means the end of one of the EV era’s most unnecessary gimmicks, few drivers—or first responders—are likely to miss it.

Source: Automotive News

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