Intel and Karma Create A Winning Combination for Electric Supercar Emerging from Intel's Value and Karma's Learned Mistakes

Intel has been working in the automotive space for several decades now with mixed results. In the labs, they’ve developed advanced technologies that allow headlights to magically penetrate snow and rain, but these technologies have never made it into cars, yet. In addition, over time they’ve purchased several automotive companies like Silicon Mobility and Mobileye (which they recently divested). And they have collaborated with Jaguar and Microsoft (AutoPC) in the past while learning about the automotive market.

Karma Automotive, which was the first Fisker car company, is working on a next-generation electric car and has announced they are working with Intel to create it. Intel has learned, over time, what is wrong with most of the current electric cars, which are a Kluge of ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) technology and far more advanced electric car tech. This poor combination has resulted in electric cars that have many of the same support and reliability problems as gas cars, but, Intel, while they initially didn’t seem to understand what it took to create a successful blend of automotive and computer technology, has, over the last two decades closed that information gap and now fully understands the need to create a single architecture based on the present level of technology for computers which should result in a far more performant and reliable product for Karma Automotive. 

Karma Automotive

Back when it was the first Fisker car company the firm made an unfortunate decision to create a hybrid-electric car that looked like a Supercar but performed like a Toyota Camry and was unreliable. They were far better looking than Telsa’s, and with a hybrid power train, in many ways initially more useful before the Tesla charging network was built out, but Tesla’s massively outperformed them.

Like Tesla, they did have a few interesting features like the ability to change the artificial engine sound coming out of the car, but buyers balked at spending over $100K for a car that could be dusted by a typical family sedan and where repair centers were few and far between.

Karma was reborn as more of an electric pure play that was to create cars that looked as good or better than the originals and would perform more in line with that appearance. Stunning automobiles that not only looked good standing still but wouldn’t embarrass their owners at the stoplight or track.

The Karma Kaveya super-coupe, which looks amazing, is slated to have up to 1,000 horsepower, optional all-wheel-drive, and a sub 3 second 0-60, and, unfortunately, a cost of around $300K so it will look like a supercar, drive like a supercar, and cost like a supercar. 

Karma is still small though, so they’ll need a lot of help with service, support, reliability, and any effort to turn the car into more of an electric appliance.

Intel’s Value Add

This is where Intel comes in. As I’ve noted above, they’ve now been working in automotive for decades, and applying what they know about cars and computers, they will help Karma with designs that are easier to support remotely, over-the-air updates (common with computers), security, thermal management, and electronic performance (assuring the various in-car systems are snappy and useful).

In addition, these new Karma cars are expected to have features so far only found in Teslas from the factory like built-in dash-cams that will monitor the cars when parked, protect the drivers from insurance scams and poor drivers who won’t accept fault, and record track events.

The result of Intel’s help should be a car monitoring system that even exceeds the current market-leading capabilities that Tesla currently enjoys.

Wrapping Up:

When Fisker, Which became Karma, and Tesla were young I often thought they should have traded technologies because the Tesla S looked like a large sedan but had the performance of a supercar, while the Fisker Karma looked like a supercar but drove like a large sedan. This worked out far better for Tesla than it did for the first Fisker car company.

With this recently announced Karma/Intel partnership, the next impressive car that Karma brings out, the Kaveya should not only be a high-performing supercar but have significant advantages in terms of support, reliability, and customer satisfaction.

Rob Enderle is a technology analyst covering automotive technology and battery developments at Torque News. You can learn more about Rob on Wikipedia, and follow his articles on Forbes, on X, and Linkedin.