Faraday Future Unveils New Car at CES 2017

It hasn’t exactly been the easiest year for Faraday Future. The company was founded after  handful of senior staff members that were recruited from the ranks of Tesla, BMW, Google, and other tech aerospace and medical businesses abandoned ship and left the company. And then they found themselves late in paying the contractor who was supposed to build their production factory in Nevada, leading Nevada’s state treasurer, Dan Schwartz (R) to accuse Faraday Future of being a “Ponzi scheme.” The primary source of Faraday Future’s funding comes from a huge Chinese tech company under the name of LeEco – a company that also building electric vehicles and could be labeled as competition.

Despite all of this, Faraday Future unveiled their electric vehicle – the FF91 – just in time for the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. The FF91 is slated to ship to customers sometime during 2018. The exact price of the car isn’t known yet, but future owners can reserve one for a refundable $5,000 fee.

HERE’S what we know about Faraday Future’s FF91 so far from its debut at CES:

The FF91 is equipped with a 130 kWh battery that is capable of a driving range of 378 miles on a single charge. Those kinds of numbers are very solid and rank well when compared to the other competitors within the industry (Tesla, Lucid Motors, etc.). It can reach 60 mph in under 2.5 seconds, 2.39 to be exact, which is better than most EVs on the market today.

The FF91 also sports some pretty cool Bluetooth features like having the doors automatically unlock when it detects you (and your phone) approaching. Unfortunately, of the two demos showing this feature, one worked and the other did not.

Physically, the shape of the FF91’s body is that of a sedan, but the car’s suspension sits like a compact SUV. It is a departure from what the company unveiled at the last year’s CES event, a ca that resembled the Batmobile more than anything else. That car (the Batmobile one) seemed more like a promise that Faraday could produce something of value, whereas the FF91 seems to be a fulfillment of that promise. It’s tangible. It actually looks like a car that a consumer would drive.

A unique approach that Faraday took with connectivity is the implementation of customized experiences. Drivers, in theory, would be able to plug in their phone directly to the steering where and have that phone remember and integrate all the settings you enjoy while you drive. Favorite radio stations, adjusted seat settings, all the preferences you have while you commute but stored on your phone.

Critics are still skeptical whether or not the FF91 is enough to keep the company afloat. Amidst all the funding issues and the delays of their production facility being built – Faraday needs confidence from the market and hopefully the FF91 can deliver that confidence.