Faraday Future is to ramp up production of its FF91 EV, with work planned to start later this year and deliveries starting just six weeks later – but only if more cash can be found to finish work on its factory.
The American firm has been handed $52 million (£44m) by unnamed investors to get its facility up and running, with a further $600m (£508) waiting when certain production targets are met, it has told Autocar.
But it said that more funding is needed before work can begin at the facility in Hanford, California – a former Pirelli tire factory purchased back in 2018 – and that it's in “active discussions with multiple investors for additional funding”.
The $180,000 (£152,460) FF91, a 1050bhp SUV unveiled in 2017, has suffered years of setbacks, executive turnover and evolutions of its purportedly ground-breaking technology.
“Hanford obviously is the big priority right now,” Faraday Future told Autocar at Monterey Car Week. “It's building out that factory, getting it completed this year and starting the production of our production units for our customers. That's really the big priority this company has right now, and obviously we need to raise additional capital to get there.”
A spokesman added: “We have facility framework for up to $600m of total funds. So that's kind of what we're targeting right now, and we're in active discussions with multiple investors for additional funding.”
The company said that it now has a “production-intent” version of the tri-motor FF91 ready to go.
“We started construction and then we pulled back a bit due to funding,” a spokesman said. “But once we went public last summer in July on Nasdaq, we really accelerated the development and build-out of that factory. I can't give you an exact date of when it will be finished, but the robots are going in right now, pre-production cars are being built up there as we speak. So it's coming along really well.”
For now, Faraday’s website lists $1500 (£1270) to $5000 (£4230) for pre-orders across three tiers of vehicles, though only the middle-grade FF91 Futurist is available for selection.
Putting down that deposit includes the opportunity to join a waitlist for the highest-spec variant, the FF91 Futurist Alliance, but still with no concrete date commitment quite yet.
Michael Van Runkle
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I hope that Faraday Future Finally Finds Further Funding For Fully Financing FF91 Futurist to Fight Ferrari FF. In the meantime I'll still keep my Ford Fiesta.
Warning: Any response including an F word will be considered Fake news.
Even Faraday himself would turn in his Grave, there's nothing about its design that makes my Man Veggies go...cooorr!, that's all right!