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Faraday Future Refuses to Die, Teases New Products After the FF91 Crossover

At one point - a long, long time ago - Faraday Future and its FF91 prototype seemed like one of the most likely companies to eventually rival Tesla, as it had a promising vehicle and strong financial backing from its Chinese billionaire investor.
Faraday Future concept 1 photo
Photo: Faraday Future
Fast forward a few years and the startup is almost in the sack, while Jia Yueting, the tycoon we mentioned above, was forced to admit he had reached too far and needed to fall back to save his businesses. High-profile figures in the company were disgruntled by this turn of events and, probably realizing it'll be an uphill battle from then on to make Faraday Future work, decided it wasn't one they planned on fighting and left.

That left FF with no money, not enough personnel, and no factory to start production of its FF91 electric crossover. It's not that the product was bad - the vehicle itself did brilliantly at Pikes Peak last year, not to mention the company has been involved with the Formula E championship, so it knows a thing or two about electric powertrains - it was more about the business model.

Naturally, with all this going on, the suppliers FF managed to secure have now lost faith, so the company organized a meeting to reassure them not all is over. Instead of the $1 billion factory it had initially planned, FF has now fallen back to a more modest solution: re-purposing an old factory in a tiny town situated between LA and San Francisco.

The company also allegedly secured an investment close to $1 billion toward the end of last year, giving it a much-needed cash infusion to go on with its plans. Speaking of which, it apparently aims to have the FF 91 ready for sale by the end of this year, which is a very optimistic deadline even by Tesla standards.

Faraday Future went one step further and even mentioned something about its upcoming models once the FF 91 situation is settled. As we know, the crossover is intended as a flagship, hence the "9" in its name. Other models would be numbered from 1 to 8, depending on their size or value, with the second number denoting their generation.

The concept shown during the meeting looks like a somewhat smaller crossover, but with a very non-conservative design. It looks pretty similar to the FF 91, which means it would have to be significantly cheaper to make bringing it to the market have any sense.

If the $1 billion cash infusion turns out to be true, Faraday Future might still manage to actually build and sell a product, though we doubt that even so, the FF 91 would solve its financial problems. A new round of fund-raising would be necessary to develop and build a second model, but if Tesla could do it, maybe there'll be enough money out there for Faraday Future as well. They just need to pick up the pace a little.
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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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