Is the way to make big money just by making big claims? It certainly looks that way, with a new start-up claiming it has designed and built an all-electric passenger car to beat Tesla at its own game.
Having launched itself two years ago, the company has come under fire for failing to deliver on its ambitious promises. Its team of more than 1,000 employees includes former Tesla, Apple, Google, BMW and NASA staff, and are there to show that the promise is not hollow.
The company is called Faraday Future and has at least built one car, they christened the FF91. The company claims their FF91 car has the fastest acceleration of any electric vehicle on the market and can reach 100 kph in 2.39 seconds. Tesla’s Model S can reach the same speed in 2.5 seconds.
FF91 is an electric vehicle with autonomous driving capabilities, it can park itself (but so can a Ford), and like Grab Taxi and Uber, will pick you up from a designated point, using the taxi company’s app.
On the surface it sounds kosher, but why has it taken them so long to demonstrate a running example of the FF91?
The financial backing for a project such as this is enormous, but Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting has deep pockets.
However, there are obviously problems beneath the surface with eight resignations of senior staff during 2016, and in November it stopped work on a $1bn production plant in Las Vegas amid reports that it was tens of millions of dollars in debt.
The PR blurb continues to say that the car will be in production in 2018, and interested possible purchasers can pre-order now for a $5,000 deposit.
The automotive industry has a history of entrepreneurs with stars in their eyes but no cars. Hopefully Faraday Future is not one of them. The deposit is not outrageous, so get four friends and throw in $1,000 each and sit out the next two years!
