Electric car startup Faraday Future prepares for battle with Tesla

[Shawn Knight]

There’s trouble brewing six hours south of Tesla’s Palo Alto headquarters. Inside Nissan’s old US sales office, a team of established auto industry engineers and executives – some, former Tesla employees – are building a company that some say is China’s response to the Model S maker.

The 18-month-old startup is called Faraday Future. Led by Chaoying Deng – at least, on paper – and believed to be backed by Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting, the company is planning to sell its first fully-electric vehicle in 2017. To realize that goal, it first needs a manufacturing facility.

Faraday Future aims to spend around $1 billion to build the plant and is currently scouting locations in California, Georgia, Louisiana and Nevada. Like its eventual rival, Faraday Future is shopping around for the best deal as it relates to economic incentives, tax breaks and so forth.

As the LA Times reminds us, Tesla ultimately decided to build its Gigafactory in Nevada largely due to the $1.3 billion economic development package the state offered. At the time, Tesla said the deal would create 6,500 new jobs and have an economic impact of nearly $100 billion over the next 20 years.

Faraday Future said in a press release that in addition to producing vehicles, it plans to explore other aspects of the auto and tech industries including in-vehicle content, autonomous driving and unique ownership and usage models.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/62699-electric-car-startup-faraday-future-prepares-battle-tesla.html

 

[RustyTech]

"...the company [Faraday Future] is planning to sell its first fully-electric vehicle in 2017."

I call bullocks! An 18 month-old company would first need to design every.single.thing.about.a.car...how can they do that unless they stole blueprints and whatnot?

 

[davislane1]

"...the company [Faraday Future] is planning to sell its first fully-electric vehicle in 2017."

I call bullocks! An 18 month-old company would first need to design every.single.thing.about.a.car...how can they do that unless they stole blueprints and whatnot?

95% of the time the product is already partially or completely "designed" prior to the formation of the actual company. You can't get backing otherwise. For the 5% who form prior to designing a product...well, there's a reason you don't know their names.

 

[RustyTech]

95% of the time the product is already partially or completely "designed" prior to the formation of the actual company. You can't get backing otherwise. For the 5% who form prior to designing a product...well, there's a reason you don't know their names.

Very good points

 

[RebelFlag]

If it is a Chinese company I am kind of surprised they are not just building the car in China. You would think they would be able to get a huge savings in labor and manufacturing cost that way.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

"...the company [Faraday Future] is planning to sell its first fully-electric vehicle in 2017."

I call bullocks! An 18 month-old company would first need to design every.single.thing.about.a.car...how can they do that unless they stole blueprints and whatnot?

95% of the time the product is already partially or completely "designed" prior to the formation of the actual company. You can't get backing otherwise. For the 5% who form prior to designing a product...well, there's a reason you don't know their names.

Agreed.

 

[psycros]

"...the company [Faraday Future] is planning to sell its first fully-electric vehicle in 2017."

I call bullocks! An 18 month-old company would first need to design every.single.thing.about.a.car...how can they do that unless they stole blueprints and whatnot?

"Former Tesla employees." 'Nuff said?

 

[RzmmDX]

"...the company [Faraday Future] is planning to sell its first fully-electric vehicle in 2017."

I call bullocks! An 18 month-old company would first need to design every.single.thing.about.a.car...how can they do that unless they stole blueprints and whatnot?

"Former Tesla employees." 'Nuff said?

Pft, they all go to Apple!

Unless they left Apple... but they would be former Apple employees.

Transitive property be damned.

 

[bexwhitt]

Anyone company make an electric car, making a good one that's another matter

Tesla with the Model S have made a car which many think is better than anything else in it's class, now that's an achievement in so little time.