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Remember Faraday Future? It Got Hold of $1 Billion So It'll Haunt Us Some More

If you don't hate electric vehicles, then you have no reason to root for Faraday Future's demise. The startup has had its problems - by comparison, Tesla's Model 3 production issues seem nothing more than mere hiccups - but it also has a very promising prototype.
Faraday Future FF 91 1 photo
Photo: Faraday Future
Despite showing it off to whoever was willing to test it and had the money to sponsor the company or the public presence to boost its image, and despite all climbing off the FF 91 smiling, the cash wasn't as easy to come by for the U.S. car manufacturer wannabe backed by Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting.

Why isn't Yueting investing the money, if he's such a big shot businessman, you might ask. Well, the truth he's seen better days, and so has his LeEco empire. The Chinese entrepreneur bit off a little more than he could chew, and his startups started crashing down one by one. Things in China aren't exactly great either as he's just been added to the government's blacklist of defaulters, so he'd be forgiven if Faraday Future's fate wasn't exactly at the top of his mind.

And yet it seems like it is. According to Securities Daily, Jia held a meeting with the (remaining) employees of Faraday Future in which he announced he had secured an investment of one billion dollars, and that he would also become the company's new Chief Executive Officer.

A lot of people told me that you have no money, you can not even support your family and must give up,” he addressed to his staff, quoted by Chinese outlet The Paper. “But obviously these people do not understand me. Even if it is a failure, I can accept it. But I can not give up, especially not on such a great dream.”

Just when we were getting ready to forget all about Faraday Future, it seems like the company refuses to die. Just like the main protagonist in an action movie that's taken a lot of battering and yet still manages to get up, Faraday Future essentially tells us we'll be hearing from it in 2018 as well.

The end of next year is when the production version of the FF 91 electric crossover should have its official launch, but the company is lacking any production capabilities as well. If what Yueting says is true, we might be looking at some serious delays. If it's not, we're looking at a dead company only kept alive by periodic electric shocks.
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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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