Faraday Future Plans to Launch Its First Electric Car This Fall
David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
Against all odds, Faraday Futures is getting close to delivering a car to consumers.
On Monday, the Gardena-based electric automaker announced a new brand campaign, complete with a slogan (“Born in California. Global DNA.”) celebrating both its local heritage and worldwide designs. Tucked inside the marketing hype, however, was a somewhat surprising detail: The embattled company plans to launch its first electric vehicle, the FF 91, in the third quarter of this year.
Faraday Future’s legal troubles and financial missteps are well-documented at this point, and even as recently as last week,the company was in the headlines for an SEC investigation. But despite those issues, the automaker seems to be building momentum toward a long-awaited product launch. While specs for the FF 91 are not yet finalized, John Schilling, Faraday’s global director of public relations and communications, told dot.LA that the company is planning to produce and deliver 2,400 units of the vehicle in the first 12 months after its Q3 launch.
While that’s a meager number compared to EV heavyweights like Tesla—which recently disclosed that it delivered more than 1 million cars over the past year—it’s at least something that Faraday and its battered shareholders can look forward to.
“We're in the phase to complete the final manufacturing facilities, and really getting ready to deliver this vehicle to the world,” Scott Wang, Faraday’s director of product marketing and go to market, told dot.LA. Executing on that promise will come down to the company’s new manufacturing facility in the San Joaquin Valley city of Hanford, Calif., but Schilling says the company is confident and “making really good progress” on the FF 91.
Faraday’s most recent brush with the SEC stems from allegedly misleading statements it made to investors, including reporting that it had received more than 14,000 reservations for its forthcoming vehicle. In reality, according to an internal review, most of those reservations were unpaid and represented only indications of interest—with the automaker having received only several hundred paid deposits for its cars.
The controversy has led to Faraday restructuring its board and slashing the pay of top executives. While the company’s troubles with securities regulators are far from over, the impending arrival of the FF 91 would bring it some sorely needed good news.- Faraday Future Looks to Grow in China - dot.LA ›
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David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
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