March 19, 2025 • 21 mins
Paul Corvino sits down with Presidnt of Karma Automotive, Marques McCammon. Karma Automotive is a Southern California-based, ultra-luxury automaker that engineers, designs, and manufactures electric and range-extended electric vehicles, with a focus on blending luxury with sustainability and innovation. Marques McCammon is the embodiment of fresh, new leadership in the automotive industry. He combines nearly 30 years of auto industry general management, product development, manufacturing, brand leadership and marketing experience with intimate knowledge of software-based automotive product advancement.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is CEOs you should know with division president of iHeartMedia,
Paul Corvino. Today, I'm here with Marcus McCammon. He's the
CEO of Karma Automotive. We're welcome, Marcus.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yeah, I'm excited to be here. It's awesome.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Before we get started and we get into learning about
your journey and how you eventually became the CEO of
Karma Automotive, I like to do a little rapid fire
Q and a all right, just to get the mind
working and the mouth moving.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah. I usually use I usually need that in the morning.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
It's better than coffee.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yes, there you go.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Okay, you're ready. Now you gotta answer quick. All right,
you got okay, beach your ski vacation beach Michael Jordan
or Tom.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Brady, Michael Jordan, Beatles, Are Stones, Stones, Star Wars or
Godfather Star Wars.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Sean Connery or Daniel Craig, Sean Connery all day. Celebrity
people say you remind them of oh, Floyd Mayweather. Floyd Mayweather.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
All right, don't ask me why I was a lad
the guy that said that to me last week?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Did you get down to one hundred and forty seven pounds?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
It'll take me a little while.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
We welcome Marcus.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
So tell us, paw. Did it all start? Where'd you
grow up? So?
Speaker 3 (01:13):
I grew up between New York City and Virginia. So
I was a New York City kid. Queen's Uh, all right, excellent?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
So I grew up in Queen's And then right around
middle school, my mother decided that I was a little
bit too comfortable hanging out in the street. So she
decided she was going to move us back to Virginia,
where she was from. So we moved to Hampton, Virginia.
I finished high school there and then after that I
went to college in North Carolina. So I went to
North Carolina A and T, which is a historically black
(01:42):
college in Greensboro. They number one graduated of black engineers
in the country. I spent my entire time there trying
to figure out how to get into the automotive industry.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Always wanted to be in the automotive industry.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I always wanted to be always wanted to be an
auto industry. So my grandfather on my mother's side was
an automcare in rural Virginia, and my grandfather on my
father's side was a car detailer in West Palm Beach.
So I was always around cars inside, in the outside,
inside and outside. I was always around them, and so
I just wanted to get closer to how they were manufactured.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
So what was the first step? How did you you
graduated college? What was the degree?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
My degree is mechanical engineering. Mechanical engineering, Okay, yeah, So
actually my first step was while I was still in
high school, I started interning. There was a fuel injector
manufacturing center near our house in Newport News, and in
the summertime and after school, I would go work there.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I clean the labs.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
It wasn't much of anything, but that was my first
exposure to the industry. Every summer I would do another
internship in a transportation related field.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Right. I did aerospace.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
It's of course aircraft up in Connecticut, which is great
because I got to go back to home to New York.
And then I did tractors in Peoria, Illinois. And then
finally when it came time for me to graduate, I
got hired in the Chrysler Corporation.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Wow, And so did you go to Detroit?
Speaker 2 (02:59):
I did go to the Deroit.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I picked up everything, and it's fun story as I'm
driving to Detroit. The weather was changing progressively as I
got there. By the time I got there, it was
like two and a half inches of snow and I
high centered my car in the parking lot of my
new apartment.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
So it was a fun, fun time.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
But yeah, so I interviewed to go into chrysl And
it's funny because you know they back then later the
Leaca years, actually right after Leiah Coca, right, so Ayacoca
had just left. Bob Eaton was the guy who was
running the place. It was just before Chrysler got sold
to Mercedes benz uh And when I interviewed, the guy
(03:36):
says to me, so, what's your five year plan?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Right?
Speaker 3 (03:37):
They used to be the million dollar resume question. And
I said, I'm gonna come to Chrysler. I'm going to
get my go back to school, get my masters, I'm
going to design a car, get my name in the paper.
They're gonna start my own car company. And the guy
just started laughing. It was like, yeah, I like your ambition,
but that's not how it works, right. But luckily, when
I got there, I was able to design a car,
(03:58):
get my name in the paper, kind of build the
reputation for car.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
What was the route that guy think? What was the
first job?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
So the first job I was working in an advanced
concept group. And the assignment from the advanced concept group
was we've been selling Neon's and at the time had
been the highest volume selling car in America and it
had taped off really fast. And so the chief operating
officer at the time, a guy named Tom Gale, says,
I want to figure out how do I make appeal
to the guys on the West coast and the young
(04:26):
people up in the Northeast and hot cars. It was
it was before kind of fast and furious rage, but
we were building to that and I kind of came
from that spirit, from that culture. So they said, take
that young guy over there, for whatever reason, he comes
to Christ every day and drives a Honda. Give him
an assignment, have him design a car.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Drove a hand to the Christ every day. I lived
in Detroit for four years. I had to buy an
American car.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
I did too in the end because a couple of
my Japanese cars got keyed. But we won't talk about this,
but no, so I pard I had to park a
mile and a half away from the building literally and
and walk in every day. But that's because I that's
what I wanted to drive.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
At the time, Ford had a special parking lot you
had to go to and then take a buss.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
So they gave me the assignment design a car that
you would want to buy. And so they gave me
a small team and we created a car. It was
called the Neon SRT four and that was actually the
birth of the whole SRT Sport Performance division.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
And so I had I had a Jeep SRT.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yep so I so we actually made up the acronym
the truth be told, so that it was called we
had our Our te was our performance line at Dodge
at the time, and a friend of mine had designed
a supercharger that fit in the Neon, so we originally
called it the Supercharged RT. But then when we wrote
the business plan and the and the and the board
decided to go forward with with the car, they said
(05:47):
we should do this across multiple brands, so they changed
the meaning of the acronym, right.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
And so you added a Hellcat to the challenger.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
The hell Cat came after me, but at the time
it was Neon. We did Viper, We did the ram
truck and we did. We did the Grand Cherokee.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Okay, so you were working on Then how did you
get to design?
Speaker 3 (06:08):
So I was more of like the project manager, right,
So I was the project manager, and so I was
the guy on the engineering side. There was a guy
in the studio who's actually doing the styling stuff. And
then I had a mechanic and some technicians who were
building the cars for me. But my thing was how
do I get it into production? And it was a
three year deal. Every time that we tried to pitch it,
(06:29):
someone would say no. So when someone said no, I said, well,
who's the guy that said no? And what job do
they have? So first guy was finance, so I got
an assignment in finance so I could learn how to
make him say yes. Next guy was a chassis guy,
so I got an assignment in chassis so I could
make him say yes. Then it was marketing, so I
took an assignment in marketing and I just kept doing
that until I figured out how to get all the
(06:50):
questions and all the objections out of the way so
people would say yes to the program.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Well, very exciting. How many years were you at.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
I was at Chrysler from late ninety eight until two
thousand and three.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
What was your next step to getting to where you
are now to eventually owning your own car companies?
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Yeah, Well, one of the executives at the company left
and he went to work for a Tier one. So
we say, we say Tier one the suppliers who sell
parts directly to the automaker. It was about a billion
dollar company. And he knew me for my time at Chrysler,
and he said, hey, you have aspirations to be a
CEO one day. It's going to be a very very
(07:28):
long road for you to make it inside of the
big corporation. Why don't you come work for me and
I'll help you figure it out. And so he gave
me an assignment to run his R and D group
and to run his strategy group, and he gave me
two people to work for me. I grew to group
into thirty five people and we developed, you know, thirteen
different new products for the company. Eighty six percent of
(07:50):
them went into production. And then you know, it just
kept going right, I just kept they just kept throwing
new opportunities at me.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
It's interesting in Detroit. I met so many people billionaire
that had some little thing that they built, bigs, it
goes into a car, that's right. That's right, Vinnie Johnson
in the basket.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
That's exactly right. That's exactly right.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Vinnie. He became a friend and he's the same thing.
He wound up making more money most basketball.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Then he then he ever could have made it. Yeah, yeah,
in the sports, that's right. And and Detroit is a
great town like that. I mean it's an old school
industrial town.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
I love Detroit.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
But you throw a stone and you find an entrepreneur
who's built a business, you know, making a part or
widget or or engineering services or something related to auto.
So it was a really great place for me to learn.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
You've designed the car for Chrysler. Yep, you're here. Now
you're understanding more how to run a business.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
You're building a big team. What's the next move?
Speaker 3 (08:42):
So the next move was I had never run a business.
I had never had responsibility for profit and loss. We
had an office out here in Huntington Beach, uh and
it had been running for two or three years that
had been losing money. And I said, look, can I
can I take a shot? He said, well, Mark, you
don't have the background. You don't have the experience yet.
I said, well, if I try and I succeed, it's
a lift. If I try and I fail, it's no
(09:04):
different than what you already had. So they let me
take the shot. I came out here. I commuted back
and forth between Detroit and California. My wife didn't like
that too much because we were pregnant with our second
child at the time.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
And coming out here in January.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
She did.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
She did like coming out here in January right. We
had a nice little apartment right on the beach down
in Long Beach, so it was great. But I did
get the business turned around. Ultimately, the board decided that
they didn't want to stay in that business, so they
had me come back to Detroit. But while I was
out here, I got in contact with Silicon Valley and
I started meeting folks in the investment community in VCS,
(09:39):
and I sat on a board with Elon Musk, and
I just got a sense that there was a different
energy of automotive that was kind of brewing, and I
wanted to get a part of it. So I got
recruited to be a general manager of a small car
company out of California called Selene they had gone through
a restructuring. They wanted someone to help reach shaped the
(10:00):
company so they could sell it. I volunteered to take
the job again. They said, well, you haven't done this before,
So I said, all right, cut my pay and let
me prove to you that I can do it. So
you know, thirteen months later, they sold the company and
I got another offer to come out here, this time
for a venture capital backed company. I wanted to get
closer to startup world. I wanted to know what does
(10:21):
it mean to build a company, And so I came
out here San Diego, started working for an EV startup
down in San Diego, pitched for money up in sand
Hill Road, New York City, lobbied DC to try and
get funding. It just kept building, trying to learn more.
So while I was there, I went up to sand
(10:42):
Hill Road and I pitched Kleiner Perkins, right big time
venture capital firm.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
At the time.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
There was a guy there there and by name of
Ray Lane. So Ray was running all of the automotive investments,
and he invested in a company called Fisker Automotive. Okay,
Fisker was there right when Tesla was really booming, raised
like a billion dollars. After that, he told me he
didn't have any more money to invest in my little
startup idea, which was a little heartbreaking. So I ended
(11:10):
up going to work for Intel at their wind River division.
I ran the global.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Software It was this startup company you had at this point.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
My well, my startup company never it was called apex,
it never went off the ground. I ended up working
for a company called Apterra Motors down in San Diego.
After Aptera, I got recruited into Intel their wind River division,
which was I ran the automotive software group there. And
then after that I got recruited to run an engineering
(11:39):
services company that was headquartered out of UK called Riccardo PLC.
One hundred and eight year old company used to sell
IP to Henry Ford. I mean really really great engineers.
But both of those organizations taught me global leadership. I
had teams all over the globe, you know, five hundred
in one thousand, of thirteen hundred people in the other
So I really learned what it meant to be a
(12:01):
senior executive. And in two thousand and twenty twenty two,
I get a phone call from a recruiter and they say, hey,
there's this car company out here. They're looking for CEO
and I said, okay, who are they. Well, they bought
the assets of a company called Fisker Automotive when they
went bankrupt. They're called Karma, I said, They say, have
(12:23):
you ever heard of him? I said, yeah, I was
there to date that heinri Fisker got his money and
they told me no. And they said, well, would you
come consider coming to run be the CEO of Karma?
I said, yeah, that'll work. And it's kind of funny
because you know, I go to work for this company
called Karma, and it's almost full circle, right, So I was.
They told me no. When I wanted to pitch my idea,
(12:44):
gave money to another guy. The guy's company folded. Our
founder bought all of his assets and used it to
rebuild and start his own car company.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
And now I'm here.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
So tell me about the car. Tell me about Karma.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
So, Karma is a Mariamerican ultra luxury vehicle that is
one of the most beautiful cars I've ever seen.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Thank you, I mean it's it's I mean to me.
I always thought that the Aston Martin was the most
beautiful car.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Yeah, Then I looked at and then I saw those
photos you showed me today and I think you passed
the Aston, Martin.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Well, and that's only one of four. Right.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
So our thing is this, in the thirties, forties and fifties,
we had the American coach building industry, and we had
brands in the US that were on par with Rolls,
Royce and and Bentley and Bugatti, Duzenberg, Packard, those Cord Auburn.
Those brands made really truly truly premium cars in that day.
(13:39):
And today if you go to a car shows, they're
collected and they're worth millions of dollars. But from that
time till now, there really isn't an American car company
that sits amongst McLaren, Ferrari, Aston, Martin, Bentley, there isn't one.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Okay, so we see this one was when you when
you designed a viper.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Well, I didn't design the viper. A good friend of
mine involved in. I helped them. I did, I did help.
I did have some have I had my little fingers
in a piece of it.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
But no.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
So I think the the thing for us now is
there's a space where look think about this in every
other facet of life. American culture is prominent at the
top right technology, sports, arts, entertainment you can think of
when you think of the best of the best in
the world, and not automotive, but not automotive. So we
(14:29):
said there should be a space there. And if it's automotive,
and if it's American, then it should have a high
orientation towards technology, it should have a high orientation towards
style and design, it should have an high orientation towards lifestyle,
and it's probably going to be oriented towards you know,
what's the future, Okay, And so that is who we are.
(14:50):
We are that company. And what it's really inspiring to
me about American culture is are our leaders at the
top again across the board when they create success, they
don't just create success for themselves. They create success that
lifts communities. And I think that's the thing that we
have to bring to the table that's unique.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
That's fascinating me. The car is absolutely beautiful, thank you
looking at those photos. What's the price tag on that
that baby? I was looking at?
Speaker 3 (15:16):
So I showed you the Karma Cavea and that is
our flagship Supercoop. That car is four hundred thousand dollars.
So it's a it's a all wheel drive, eleven hundred horsepower,
twelve hundred and seventy pound foot of torque supercoop and
it is meant to stop traffic, eyes turn, everyone falls
in love and just start gushing over it, right it.
(15:36):
But the other side of it is it's also a
technology marvel. So in August of this year, I announced
I was up in Monterey and I announced that we
are doing a technology partnership with Intel Automotive. So when
I was at Intel, my partner who was running the
Silicon side, we had this vision of what the future
of cars could be and how we could use technology
(15:58):
to make cars more productive and more efficient and frankly
just better. And we never got a chance to really
make it happen because it's hard to move big auto
companies to do, you know, brand new things like that. Well,
now I've got an auto company that's just about the
right size. I know the technology that we want to
push forward, so we're partner to make it happen.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
What are the other tell me what the other car?
The other cars in the line.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
So the next So right now we're launching the Karma Rivero,
which is our flagship. It's a GT Sedan. The cool
thing about this car is it's an electric range extended
electric vehicle. So what does that mean. It has electric
drive five hundred and thirty six horse power of electric drive,
but it also has a small generator on board that
refills the batteries as you drive. So if when you
(16:45):
charge it, charge it at home, you never have to
worry about public charging, you never have to worry about
range anxiety. You can take it anywhere that you want.
So it's just better. It's a it's a no compromise solution.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Just charge it once.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
I charge it at home, I drive wherever I want.
When I get back home, I plug it back in.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
And how many miles can you go with that?
Speaker 3 (17:02):
So I can do three hundred and sixty miles total,
eighty miles pure electric. So all my normal daily driving
I do all ev I never turned the gin set
on at all. But when I want to go fast,
and I have a propensity to drive faster than.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Most people, I like that. You can't control yourself, Yeah,
it's hard to resist.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Why be in the car?
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah, exactly exactly, So we have So that's our first car,
the Rivero with our e rev Our erev platform. Then
we have the next one is called Giassara. I debut
that earlier this year in down in mon Amelia Island,
down in Florida. So that is the next generation. So
(17:45):
the Rivero has been our company has actually been around
for ten years, right, but this vision of who we're
going to be has only been in place since I joined.
Last year, we sold up a little over thousand, Okay,
so we have twenty two dealers across the US.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
I mean the great thing.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
About us is also the dealerships. Yeah, we sell them
through dealerships.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
I honestly am fond of the dealership model because it
is it allows a level of intimacy with the customer
and I can still support the customers directly from the manufacturer.
And so we've had We've got twenty two deals across
the US. I've got deals in Canada, South America, I
got deals in Europe.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
You would dealerships that sell other cars, yeah, most of
some of them.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
I have two who will only sell Karma, but most
of my most of my dealers sell other ultra luxury brands.
So they'll sell Aston, they'll sell Ferrari, they'll sell McLaren
and the like.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
We're in southern California. Can someone go in and see
a car?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (18:37):
So we've our store in Southern California is in Newport
Beach and it's just right close to the John Wayne Airport.
And we're adding some more stores in southern California. So
we just opened up a new store in Marietta, and
then we have some others that are coming soon. I
can't talk about just yet right, but everything. If they
want to see Karma, all of Karma's here. So my
headquarters is in Irvine. All of my cars are manufactured
(18:59):
in Marie and O Valley. So everything about Karma is
a Southern California company and that's pretty unique.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Nobody else is start a website they can go to
to see the car.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Yes, so we're at Karma Automotive dot com and they'll
see the Rivero, the Giasara, the Cavea, the Ivara. And
then I have some new things coming to in a
few months.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
And what's the lowest price point if I'm thinking about
getting a car?
Speaker 3 (19:20):
So the lowest price point for our cars is about
one hundred and forty three thousand, okay, and then after
that then you know, and each model kind of moves
up market a little bit.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
You take a trade in, I'm ready to make deal.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
I can take a trade. I could say you said
that you had a seventh series.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Seventh series BMW to twenty two. All right, yeah, I
just I just banged it up coming out of the
coming out of the Dodgers.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Well see, now you just messed up the whole deal.
But no, we can definitely find find a way to
get you into Karma. We actually have a program for
people who want to try the brand where you can
actually do. You can lease them for a week or
a month at a time, just so you get a
chance to experience it, and then if you like it,
we bring in we put you in one that's actually
custom build for you. If not, you bring it back
(20:03):
and you go back to your broken BMW.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Well it's been so great having you on. Marcus McCammon,
he's the CEO of Karma Automotive. Beautiful new car. American
car's out there to compete with the Ferraris and McLaren's
and Aston Martin's, and it's certainly as beautiful. I haven't
had a chance to drive it yet, but I'm confident
(20:29):
that it's gonna.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Oh yeah, I took that as a challenge. So now
I'm inviting out for a drive.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
I'm going to take you up on that. I'm actually
seriously thinking about seeing if i could get myself into
one of those cars again. Give me the location where
you're located in Newport Beach.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Yes, our stores in Newport Beach right on Campus Road.
We're right across from the private jet terminal at John
Wayne Airport. And give us the website, Karma Automotive dot com.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Well, thank you so much markets for coming on. This
is Paul Corvino, Division president of iHeartMedia in Los Angeles,
saying thank you for listening to another episode of CEOs
you Should Know. Listen to CEOs you Should Know on
the iHeartRadio app.
This is CEOs you should know with division president of iHeartMedia,
Paul Corvino. Today, I'm here with Marcus McCammon. He's the
CEO of Karma Automotive. We're welcome, Marcus.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yeah, I'm excited to be here. It's awesome.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Before we get started and we get into learning about
your journey and how you eventually became the CEO of
Karma Automotive, I like to do a little rapid fire
Q and a all right, just to get the mind
working and the mouth moving.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah. I usually use I usually need that in the morning.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
It's better than coffee.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yes, there you go.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Okay, you're ready. Now you gotta answer quick. All right,
you got okay, beach your ski vacation beach Michael Jordan
or Tom.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Brady, Michael Jordan, Beatles, Are Stones, Stones, Star Wars or
Godfather Star Wars.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Sean Connery or Daniel Craig, Sean Connery all day. Celebrity
people say you remind them of oh, Floyd Mayweather. Floyd Mayweather.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
All right, don't ask me why I was a lad
the guy that said that to me last week?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Did you get down to one hundred and forty seven pounds?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
It'll take me a little while.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
We welcome Marcus.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
So tell us, paw. Did it all start? Where'd you
grow up? So?
Speaker 3 (01:13):
I grew up between New York City and Virginia. So
I was a New York City kid. Queen's Uh, all right, excellent?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
So I grew up in Queen's And then right around
middle school, my mother decided that I was a little
bit too comfortable hanging out in the street. So she
decided she was going to move us back to Virginia,
where she was from. So we moved to Hampton, Virginia.
I finished high school there and then after that I
went to college in North Carolina. So I went to
North Carolina A and T, which is a historically black
(01:42):
college in Greensboro. They number one graduated of black engineers
in the country. I spent my entire time there trying
to figure out how to get into the automotive industry.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Always wanted to be in the automotive industry.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I always wanted to be always wanted to be an
auto industry. So my grandfather on my mother's side was
an automcare in rural Virginia, and my grandfather on my
father's side was a car detailer in West Palm Beach.
So I was always around cars inside, in the outside,
inside and outside. I was always around them, and so
I just wanted to get closer to how they were manufactured.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
So what was the first step? How did you you
graduated college? What was the degree?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
My degree is mechanical engineering. Mechanical engineering, Okay, yeah, So
actually my first step was while I was still in
high school, I started interning. There was a fuel injector
manufacturing center near our house in Newport News, and in
the summertime and after school, I would go work there.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I clean the labs.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
It wasn't much of anything, but that was my first
exposure to the industry. Every summer I would do another
internship in a transportation related field.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Right. I did aerospace.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
It's of course aircraft up in Connecticut, which is great
because I got to go back to home to New York.
And then I did tractors in Peoria, Illinois. And then
finally when it came time for me to graduate, I
got hired in the Chrysler Corporation.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Wow, And so did you go to Detroit?
Speaker 2 (02:59):
I did go to the Deroit.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I picked up everything, and it's fun story as I'm
driving to Detroit. The weather was changing progressively as I
got there. By the time I got there, it was
like two and a half inches of snow and I
high centered my car in the parking lot of my
new apartment.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
So it was a fun, fun time.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
But yeah, so I interviewed to go into chrysl And
it's funny because you know they back then later the
Leaca years, actually right after Leiah Coca, right, so Ayacoca
had just left. Bob Eaton was the guy who was
running the place. It was just before Chrysler got sold
to Mercedes benz uh And when I interviewed, the guy
(03:36):
says to me, so, what's your five year plan?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Right?
Speaker 3 (03:37):
They used to be the million dollar resume question. And
I said, I'm gonna come to Chrysler. I'm going to
get my go back to school, get my masters, I'm
going to design a car, get my name in the paper.
They're gonna start my own car company. And the guy
just started laughing. It was like, yeah, I like your ambition,
but that's not how it works, right. But luckily, when
I got there, I was able to design a car,
(03:58):
get my name in the paper, kind of build the
reputation for car.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
What was the route that guy think? What was the
first job?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
So the first job I was working in an advanced
concept group. And the assignment from the advanced concept group
was we've been selling Neon's and at the time had
been the highest volume selling car in America and it
had taped off really fast. And so the chief operating
officer at the time, a guy named Tom Gale, says,
I want to figure out how do I make appeal
to the guys on the West coast and the young
(04:26):
people up in the Northeast and hot cars. It was
it was before kind of fast and furious rage, but
we were building to that and I kind of came
from that spirit, from that culture. So they said, take
that young guy over there, for whatever reason, he comes
to Christ every day and drives a Honda. Give him
an assignment, have him design a car.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Drove a hand to the Christ every day. I lived
in Detroit for four years. I had to buy an
American car.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
I did too in the end because a couple of
my Japanese cars got keyed. But we won't talk about this,
but no, so I pard I had to park a
mile and a half away from the building literally and
and walk in every day. But that's because I that's
what I wanted to drive.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
At the time, Ford had a special parking lot you
had to go to and then take a buss.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
So they gave me the assignment design a car that
you would want to buy. And so they gave me
a small team and we created a car. It was
called the Neon SRT four and that was actually the
birth of the whole SRT Sport Performance division.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
And so I had I had a Jeep SRT.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yep so I so we actually made up the acronym
the truth be told, so that it was called we
had our Our te was our performance line at Dodge
at the time, and a friend of mine had designed
a supercharger that fit in the Neon, so we originally
called it the Supercharged RT. But then when we wrote
the business plan and the and the and the board
decided to go forward with with the car, they said
(05:47):
we should do this across multiple brands, so they changed
the meaning of the acronym, right.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
And so you added a Hellcat to the challenger.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
The hell Cat came after me, but at the time
it was Neon. We did Viper, We did the ram
truck and we did. We did the Grand Cherokee.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Okay, so you were working on Then how did you
get to design?
Speaker 3 (06:08):
So I was more of like the project manager, right,
So I was the project manager, and so I was
the guy on the engineering side. There was a guy
in the studio who's actually doing the styling stuff. And
then I had a mechanic and some technicians who were
building the cars for me. But my thing was how
do I get it into production? And it was a
three year deal. Every time that we tried to pitch it,
(06:29):
someone would say no. So when someone said no, I said, well,
who's the guy that said no? And what job do
they have? So first guy was finance, so I got
an assignment in finance so I could learn how to
make him say yes. Next guy was a chassis guy,
so I got an assignment in chassis so I could
make him say yes. Then it was marketing, so I
took an assignment in marketing and I just kept doing
that until I figured out how to get all the
(06:50):
questions and all the objections out of the way so
people would say yes to the program.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Well, very exciting. How many years were you at.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
I was at Chrysler from late ninety eight until two
thousand and three.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
What was your next step to getting to where you
are now to eventually owning your own car companies?
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Yeah, Well, one of the executives at the company left
and he went to work for a Tier one. So
we say, we say Tier one the suppliers who sell
parts directly to the automaker. It was about a billion
dollar company. And he knew me for my time at Chrysler,
and he said, hey, you have aspirations to be a
CEO one day. It's going to be a very very
(07:28):
long road for you to make it inside of the
big corporation. Why don't you come work for me and
I'll help you figure it out. And so he gave
me an assignment to run his R and D group
and to run his strategy group, and he gave me
two people to work for me. I grew to group
into thirty five people and we developed, you know, thirteen
different new products for the company. Eighty six percent of
(07:50):
them went into production. And then you know, it just
kept going right, I just kept they just kept throwing
new opportunities at me.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
It's interesting in Detroit. I met so many people billionaire
that had some little thing that they built, bigs, it
goes into a car, that's right. That's right, Vinnie Johnson
in the basket.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
That's exactly right. That's exactly right.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Vinnie. He became a friend and he's the same thing.
He wound up making more money most basketball.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Then he then he ever could have made it. Yeah, yeah,
in the sports, that's right. And and Detroit is a
great town like that. I mean it's an old school
industrial town.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
I love Detroit.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
But you throw a stone and you find an entrepreneur
who's built a business, you know, making a part or
widget or or engineering services or something related to auto.
So it was a really great place for me to learn.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
You've designed the car for Chrysler. Yep, you're here. Now
you're understanding more how to run a business.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
You're building a big team. What's the next move?
Speaker 3 (08:42):
So the next move was I had never run a business.
I had never had responsibility for profit and loss. We
had an office out here in Huntington Beach, uh and
it had been running for two or three years that
had been losing money. And I said, look, can I
can I take a shot? He said, well, Mark, you
don't have the background. You don't have the experience yet.
I said, well, if I try and I succeed, it's
a lift. If I try and I fail, it's no
(09:04):
different than what you already had. So they let me
take the shot. I came out here. I commuted back
and forth between Detroit and California. My wife didn't like
that too much because we were pregnant with our second
child at the time.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
And coming out here in January.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
She did.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
She did like coming out here in January right. We
had a nice little apartment right on the beach down
in Long Beach, so it was great. But I did
get the business turned around. Ultimately, the board decided that
they didn't want to stay in that business, so they
had me come back to Detroit. But while I was
out here, I got in contact with Silicon Valley and
I started meeting folks in the investment community in VCS,
(09:39):
and I sat on a board with Elon Musk, and
I just got a sense that there was a different
energy of automotive that was kind of brewing, and I
wanted to get a part of it. So I got
recruited to be a general manager of a small car
company out of California called Selene they had gone through
a restructuring. They wanted someone to help reach shaped the
(10:00):
company so they could sell it. I volunteered to take
the job again. They said, well, you haven't done this before,
So I said, all right, cut my pay and let
me prove to you that I can do it. So
you know, thirteen months later, they sold the company and
I got another offer to come out here, this time
for a venture capital backed company. I wanted to get
closer to startup world. I wanted to know what does
(10:21):
it mean to build a company, And so I came
out here San Diego, started working for an EV startup
down in San Diego, pitched for money up in sand
Hill Road, New York City, lobbied DC to try and
get funding. It just kept building, trying to learn more.
So while I was there, I went up to sand
(10:42):
Hill Road and I pitched Kleiner Perkins, right big time
venture capital firm.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
At the time.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
There was a guy there there and by name of
Ray Lane. So Ray was running all of the automotive investments,
and he invested in a company called Fisker Automotive. Okay,
Fisker was there right when Tesla was really booming, raised
like a billion dollars. After that, he told me he
didn't have any more money to invest in my little
startup idea, which was a little heartbreaking. So I ended
(11:10):
up going to work for Intel at their wind River division.
I ran the global.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Software It was this startup company you had at this point.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
My well, my startup company never it was called apex,
it never went off the ground. I ended up working
for a company called Apterra Motors down in San Diego.
After Aptera, I got recruited into Intel their wind River division,
which was I ran the automotive software group there. And
then after that I got recruited to run an engineering
(11:39):
services company that was headquartered out of UK called Riccardo PLC.
One hundred and eight year old company used to sell
IP to Henry Ford. I mean really really great engineers.
But both of those organizations taught me global leadership. I
had teams all over the globe, you know, five hundred
in one thousand, of thirteen hundred people in the other
So I really learned what it meant to be a
(12:01):
senior executive. And in two thousand and twenty twenty two,
I get a phone call from a recruiter and they say, hey,
there's this car company out here. They're looking for CEO
and I said, okay, who are they. Well, they bought
the assets of a company called Fisker Automotive when they
went bankrupt. They're called Karma, I said, They say, have
(12:23):
you ever heard of him? I said, yeah, I was
there to date that heinri Fisker got his money and
they told me no. And they said, well, would you
come consider coming to run be the CEO of Karma?
I said, yeah, that'll work. And it's kind of funny
because you know, I go to work for this company
called Karma, and it's almost full circle, right, So I was.
They told me no. When I wanted to pitch my idea,
(12:44):
gave money to another guy. The guy's company folded. Our
founder bought all of his assets and used it to
rebuild and start his own car company.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
And now I'm here.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
So tell me about the car. Tell me about Karma.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
So, Karma is a Mariamerican ultra luxury vehicle that is
one of the most beautiful cars I've ever seen.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Thank you, I mean it's it's I mean to me.
I always thought that the Aston Martin was the most
beautiful car.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Yeah, Then I looked at and then I saw those
photos you showed me today and I think you passed
the Aston, Martin.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Well, and that's only one of four. Right.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
So our thing is this, in the thirties, forties and fifties,
we had the American coach building industry, and we had
brands in the US that were on par with Rolls,
Royce and and Bentley and Bugatti, Duzenberg, Packard, those Cord Auburn.
Those brands made really truly truly premium cars in that day.
(13:39):
And today if you go to a car shows, they're
collected and they're worth millions of dollars. But from that
time till now, there really isn't an American car company
that sits amongst McLaren, Ferrari, Aston, Martin, Bentley, there isn't one.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Okay, so we see this one was when you when
you designed a viper.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Well, I didn't design the viper. A good friend of
mine involved in. I helped them. I did, I did help.
I did have some have I had my little fingers
in a piece of it.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
But no.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
So I think the the thing for us now is
there's a space where look think about this in every
other facet of life. American culture is prominent at the
top right technology, sports, arts, entertainment you can think of
when you think of the best of the best in
the world, and not automotive, but not automotive. So we
(14:29):
said there should be a space there. And if it's automotive,
and if it's American, then it should have a high
orientation towards technology, it should have a high orientation towards
style and design, it should have an high orientation towards lifestyle,
and it's probably going to be oriented towards you know,
what's the future, Okay, And so that is who we are.
(14:50):
We are that company. And what it's really inspiring to
me about American culture is are our leaders at the
top again across the board when they create success, they
don't just create success for themselves. They create success that
lifts communities. And I think that's the thing that we
have to bring to the table that's unique.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
That's fascinating me. The car is absolutely beautiful, thank you
looking at those photos. What's the price tag on that
that baby? I was looking at?
Speaker 3 (15:16):
So I showed you the Karma Cavea and that is
our flagship Supercoop. That car is four hundred thousand dollars.
So it's a it's a all wheel drive, eleven hundred horsepower,
twelve hundred and seventy pound foot of torque supercoop and
it is meant to stop traffic, eyes turn, everyone falls
in love and just start gushing over it, right it.
(15:36):
But the other side of it is it's also a
technology marvel. So in August of this year, I announced
I was up in Monterey and I announced that we
are doing a technology partnership with Intel Automotive. So when
I was at Intel, my partner who was running the
Silicon side, we had this vision of what the future
of cars could be and how we could use technology
(15:58):
to make cars more productive and more efficient and frankly
just better. And we never got a chance to really
make it happen because it's hard to move big auto
companies to do, you know, brand new things like that. Well,
now I've got an auto company that's just about the
right size. I know the technology that we want to
push forward, so we're partner to make it happen.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
What are the other tell me what the other car?
The other cars in the line.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
So the next So right now we're launching the Karma Rivero,
which is our flagship. It's a GT Sedan. The cool
thing about this car is it's an electric range extended
electric vehicle. So what does that mean. It has electric
drive five hundred and thirty six horse power of electric drive,
but it also has a small generator on board that
refills the batteries as you drive. So if when you
(16:45):
charge it, charge it at home, you never have to
worry about public charging, you never have to worry about
range anxiety. You can take it anywhere that you want.
So it's just better. It's a it's a no compromise solution.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Just charge it once.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
I charge it at home, I drive wherever I want.
When I get back home, I plug it back in.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
And how many miles can you go with that?
Speaker 3 (17:02):
So I can do three hundred and sixty miles total,
eighty miles pure electric. So all my normal daily driving
I do all ev I never turned the gin set
on at all. But when I want to go fast,
and I have a propensity to drive faster than.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Most people, I like that. You can't control yourself, Yeah,
it's hard to resist.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Why be in the car?
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah, exactly exactly, So we have So that's our first car,
the Rivero with our e rev Our erev platform. Then
we have the next one is called Giassara. I debut
that earlier this year in down in mon Amelia Island,
down in Florida. So that is the next generation. So
(17:45):
the Rivero has been our company has actually been around
for ten years, right, but this vision of who we're
going to be has only been in place since I joined.
Last year, we sold up a little over thousand, Okay,
so we have twenty two dealers across the US.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
I mean the great thing.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
About us is also the dealerships. Yeah, we sell them
through dealerships.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
I honestly am fond of the dealership model because it
is it allows a level of intimacy with the customer
and I can still support the customers directly from the manufacturer.
And so we've had We've got twenty two deals across
the US. I've got deals in Canada, South America, I
got deals in Europe.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
You would dealerships that sell other cars, yeah, most of
some of them.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
I have two who will only sell Karma, but most
of my most of my dealers sell other ultra luxury brands.
So they'll sell Aston, they'll sell Ferrari, they'll sell McLaren
and the like.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
We're in southern California. Can someone go in and see
a car?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (18:37):
So we've our store in Southern California is in Newport
Beach and it's just right close to the John Wayne Airport.
And we're adding some more stores in southern California. So
we just opened up a new store in Marietta, and
then we have some others that are coming soon. I
can't talk about just yet right, but everything. If they
want to see Karma, all of Karma's here. So my
headquarters is in Irvine. All of my cars are manufactured
(18:59):
in Marie and O Valley. So everything about Karma is
a Southern California company and that's pretty unique.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Nobody else is start a website they can go to
to see the car.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Yes, so we're at Karma Automotive dot com and they'll
see the Rivero, the Giasara, the Cavea, the Ivara. And
then I have some new things coming to in a
few months.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
And what's the lowest price point if I'm thinking about
getting a car?
Speaker 3 (19:20):
So the lowest price point for our cars is about
one hundred and forty three thousand, okay, and then after
that then you know, and each model kind of moves
up market a little bit.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
You take a trade in, I'm ready to make deal.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
I can take a trade. I could say you said
that you had a seventh series.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Seventh series BMW to twenty two. All right, yeah, I
just I just banged it up coming out of the
coming out of the Dodgers.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Well see, now you just messed up the whole deal.
But no, we can definitely find find a way to
get you into Karma. We actually have a program for
people who want to try the brand where you can
actually do. You can lease them for a week or
a month at a time, just so you get a
chance to experience it, and then if you like it,
we bring in we put you in one that's actually
custom build for you. If not, you bring it back
(20:03):
and you go back to your broken BMW.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Well it's been so great having you on. Marcus McCammon,
he's the CEO of Karma Automotive. Beautiful new car. American
car's out there to compete with the Ferraris and McLaren's
and Aston Martin's, and it's certainly as beautiful. I haven't
had a chance to drive it yet, but I'm confident
(20:29):
that it's gonna.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Oh yeah, I took that as a challenge. So now
I'm inviting out for a drive.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
I'm going to take you up on that. I'm actually
seriously thinking about seeing if i could get myself into
one of those cars again. Give me the location where
you're located in Newport Beach.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Yes, our stores in Newport Beach right on Campus Road.
We're right across from the private jet terminal at John
Wayne Airport. And give us the website, Karma Automotive dot com.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Well, thank you so much markets for coming on. This
is Paul Corvino, Division president of iHeartMedia in Los Angeles,
saying thank you for listening to another episode of CEOs
you Should Know. Listen to CEOs you Should Know on
the iHeartRadio app.
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