Faraday Future has delayed the production of its flagship FF91 electric car because it is short on cash and has issues with the supply chain, according to the companys regulatory filing. Beleaguered American EV startup Faraday Future has delivered some welcome news this week, landing some fresh financing that the company says will allow it to finally start deliveries of its flagship electric sedan, the FF 91. Founded in 2014, Faraday Future Intelligent Electric Inc once promised it would start producing and selling its highly anticipated debut car as soon as 2018, but has been forced to delay deliveries of its first mass-market car multiple times.
In February, Faraday Futures celebrated the completion of the Faraday Futures first car. Faraday Futures is going to pursue a hybrid strategy when building its cars, said CEO Carsten Breitfeld, with the FF91 crossover being built in its facility in Hanford, Calif., while the mass-market FF81 is being built by Myoung Shin, a contracted builder (009900.KS). Faraday Future showed off the production version of its FF91 EV SUV at its California facility in February, and said it will begin producing the vehicle, which has been delayed, by Q3-2022.
Faraday Futures said this week it needs additional funding in order to begin releasing the first vehicle from Faraday Future. No one ever said building a car company was easy — or inexpensive — and electric vehicle startup Faraday Future, which has delayed the FF91s production again, said more cash is needed in order to bring Teslas long-delayed competitor to production.
Meanwhile, a number of other startups and established carmakers have launched or announced their own electric SUVs. Other electric car startups, like the private-equity-backed Rivian and Lucid, soon expected to be taken public through the SPAC merger, have delayed the manufacture and delivery of their first vehicles.
The gap between these two companies continues to widen in comparison with Faraday. These difficulties summarize Faradays history, which was co-founded with much fanfare by JiaYT Yueting, a Chinese millionaire and the owner of Chinas Media Conglomerate, in 2014.
In February, Faraday announced that chairman Brian Krolicki had stepped down from his post, following an internal investigation at Faraday, which revealed the company had made statements about the pre-orders for its one and only electric car that may have misled investors. The company also said the internal Faraday probe had identified significant weaknesses in its internal controls, and it needed to update staffing and systems. The firm announced Thursday that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had opened an investigation of Faradays statements regarding the advance ordering of its one electric car during the period leading up to the companys public offering of the one.
Faraday Future has had a long history of controversies, which seemed only to intensify following its transition into a publicly traded company in July 2021 via its merger with Property Solutions Acquisition Corp. Just months after it debuted in public, a short-seller reported by J Capital said that Faraday Future had made a series of inaccurate statements. In August, Faraday Future signed a lease on the former Pirelli Tires factory in Hanford, Calif., while one year later, Faraday Future sold 45% of it to Evergrande Group – a Chinese real estate developer that is registered in the Cayman Islands – for $854 million. Eventually, a new CEO was found, the founders and CEO declared personal bankruptcy, and Faraday Futures saw an opportunity to capitalize on new cash flowing into the electric vehicle startup space, merging with the blank cheque firm, and going public. Its founders also formed another competing electric car venture, the LeEco LeSee, that insiders say is pulling funds and talent away from Faraday Futures LeEco, though other sources say that another competing EV venture was never actually built (it has yet to come out).
We first saw its electric vehicle, the FF 91, at CES 2017, where Faraday Futures took over the giant tent akin to a stadium, featuring a drag race with the Tesla Model S. A restructuring and new investors gave the FF life again in 2019, and we were able to get a brief ride on an FF 91 for the following year at CES 2020. Back then, it promised that it would start producing its FF91 with an all-luxury interior in 2018. Faraday Future entered the Formula E FIA Championship for Electric-powered cars, in partnership with existing American-based Dragon Racing, in the 2016-2017 Formula E season. HANFORD, Calif. — Faraday Future, the California-based global electric car maker, provided further updates on the progress at the North American production facilities of Faraday Future, and revealed the official name for the manufacturing plant located in Hanford, Calif., now identified as FF ieFactory California. The manufacturing plant located in Hanford, Calif., now identified as FF ieFactory California.
Faraday announced as early as July of 2021 that all reservations and deposits for a limited-edition, invitation-only production run of the 300-unit, invitation-only run of the FF 91 Futurist Alliance Edition Model. It is not clear whether it is those 300 Futurist Alliance Edition models that Breitfeld is referring to as cars to start manufacturing and deliveries during the latter part of this year, but the fact that Faraday Future is finally moving toward something resembling production can only bode well for the companys future.