Faraday Future Cancels Plans For $1 Billion Electric Vehicle Factory In Nevada
In a very unsurprising turn of events, Faraday Future’s much publicized plans to build a huge $1 billion electric vehicle manufacturing plant in Nevada are apparently now caput.
Considering all of the financial problems that the company has experienced over the last year, and the departure of a great number of execs during the same period of time, this news has been essentially expected for some time now.
Relating to this news, though, it’s interesting that some of the assets of the primary backer Jia Yueting have actually been frozen in China — the tech “billionaire” has seemingly overextended himself even more than was first thought.
FT provides more: “In a statement on Monday, Faraday said it had ‘put on hold’ construction of the Las Vegas facility as part of a push to ‘significantly [shift] our business strategy to position the company as the leader in user-ship personal mobility’.
“It added: ‘As a result of this shift in direction, we are in the process of identifying a manufacturing facility that presents a faster path to start-of-production and aligns with future strategic options.’ The company insisted it would return to Nevada, where it still owns the land, some day for ‘long-term vehicle manufacturing’.
“The nature and extent of Faraday’s strategic shift is unclear. The company declined to elaborate on what ‘user-ship personal mobility’ meant, promising more details on what it bills as a ‘vehicle usage model that reimagines the way users access mobility’ in the ‘coming weeks’. At the same time, Faraday said its search for new funding was ‘continuing as planned’.”
That makes for a somewhat muddled collection of statements from the company. So, what exactly is the company doing? Trying to reposition itself to where the investment money is? Crashing and burning?
There are a lot of companies out there nowadays that seem to be essentially nothing but PR gimmicks — Faraday Future is certainly not alone in that respect — but the company did seem to take that sort of approach to business even further than most.
Don’t forget what was said about the company’s FF91 electric car at its unveiling: “It no longer is just a car. It’s a new species.”
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