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Faraday Future Intelligent Electric, Inc. is still in the fight. Jia Yueting, known as YT Jia, founded the company in 2014, planning to put the first EV into production in 2017. It wasn’t until February 2022 that we saw the production version of the car now known as the FF91. A few more tornadoes hit the company’s executive suite and bank accounts, Faraday not sure it would survive to the end of 2022. A $135 million injection this February put some steam back in the electric dream. At last, the company has announced that production is under way at the Hanford, California facility called the FF ieFactory California.
The first 5,000 sedans to leave the factory will ostensibly be the FF 91 Futurist Alliance trims that reservation holders put $5,000 down on, but we’re not sure that’s what’s going to happen. Last May, Faraday financial statements claimed 401 genuine reservations — meaning customers put money down to secure a spot. The company’s reservation page continues to indicate the FF 91 Futurist Alliance is sold out, as it has done for years. So, either the company forgot to turn off the “Sold Out” sign, or 4,500 people threw money at their screens once they heard Faraday would stay in business. We’ll be happy to see cars on the road before we start asking questions about such details.
We don’t know when deliveries will commence, though. Faraday says there will be a “final launch event” on April 26, which sounds like a fine day to hand over some keys to the 1,050-horsepower sedan with the 130-kWh battery providing an EPA-rated range of 381 miles. It sounds like customers have been sorted into three groups for delivery sequence. The first two groups are so-called Future Product Officers (FPO), the company calling FPO “a platform between FF experts and user experts to work together and build better products. FPOs are invited to exclusive experiences with FF products, provide feedbacks, generate creative ideas, and see your ideas turn into reality.” FPOs who are also industry experts will get their cars first, followed by ‘regular’ FPOs, followed by regular Janes and Joes.
The retail sales operation kicks off in a new Flagship Brand Experience Center being planned for Beverly Hills, followed by direct sales centers in San Francisco and New York. Overseas, Shanghai and Beijing begin the international onslaught. And when we write “begin,” we mean the company has plans to make as much or more money from mobility ancillaries as it does from the cars. From the company’s founding, Jia envisioned this car as a “third Internet living space” after one’s home and one’s cellphone. Assuming cars get made and the company stays in business, prepare for a catalog of cost-extra features, apps, entertainment, software, subscriptions, and downloads that no automaker has dared try yet. Remember, each FF 91 contains 11 screens. That’s a lot of space for loot boxes.
For all of this, Faraday Future still hasn’t publicly shared a price for any trim of the FF 91. With the brand aspiring to become “a major player in the high-value user market,” and the market having moved way upmarket since 2014, the common expectation is an FF 91 is going to ask more than six figures, perhaps close to $200,000. A sub-six-figure offering isn’t anticipated until the FF 81 debuts.
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