introduction
Faraday Future is a startup that has attracted much attention in the electric vehicle industry, attracting global attention with its innovative technology and vision of luxury electric vehicles. However, the company's development path has not been smooth sailing, with ups and downs.
1. Initiation and vision
Faraday Future was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in California, USA. The company is named after Faraday's law of induction, one of the fundamental principles of electric motor technology, in honor of the British scientist Michael Faraday's discovery of electromagnetic induction. The company's goal of creating disruptive smart electric vehicles has attracted the attention of a large number of investors. Its first production car, the FF 91, stunned the automotive world when it debuted at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas with its extremely high performance parameters and intelligent experience. The FF 91 is equipped with a 1050-horsepower powertrain with a range of up to 378 miles and is equipped with advanced autopilot features and a luxurious interior.
Second, the founder's trust crisis, financial dilemma and management problems
Despite its bright start, Faraday Future soon encountered the dilemma of breaking the capital chain. The company's founder, Jia Yueting, had difficulty in cash flow due to debt problems with LeEco Holdings in China. After 2017, the company has repeatedly reported news of financial crises and even faced the risk of bankruptcy. Frequent changes in management and strategic instability further exacerbated the company's predicament.
Jia Yueting is best known for founding LeTV and Faraday Future. However, his business activities were fraught with controversy.
In the process of rapid expansion of LeTV, Jia Yueting's excessive investment led to the rupture of the company's capital chain and a serious financial crisis. LeTV's investments in a number of areas have failed to deliver the expected returns, but have exacerbated the company's financial woes and accumulated a lot of debt. Faced with the company's difficulties, Jia Yueting resigned as chairman of LeTV in 2017, and then moved to the United States to focus on Faraday's future development. However, he failed to deal with his debts in China in a timely manner, resulting in him being included in the list of judgment defaulters, commonly known as "Lao Lai".
After Jia Yueting founded Faraday Future in the United States, the company repeatedly postponed its mass production plan, its internal management was chaotic, and the employee turnover rate was high. Jia Yueting's personal credit problems have also affected Faraday Future's financing ability.
Jia Yueting and LeTV have faced multiple legal actions due to debt and management issues. These lawsuits deal with issues such as outstanding loans, investor compensation, and more. Mr. Jia filed for bankruptcy reorganization in the United States in an attempt to resolve some of his debts, but the move also sparked new controversy. Mr. Jia's actions have raised questions about his integrity and business ethics. He is considered a prime case of excessive risk-taking and blind expansion, which has led to huge losses for companies and investors. These incidents severely damaged his public image and further exacerbated the company's operational difficulties.
Some former employees and government officials have questioned Faraday Future's financial capabilities. Faraday Future has also not set up a trust fund of a certain size, which has led many media and financial analysts to doubt the company's financial stability and overall investment strategy.
Some analysts believe that Faraday Future's financial funds rely heavily on the equity pledge of the listed company LeTV by major investor Jia Yueting, and the financial resonance effect of Faraday Future. In November 2016, Faraday Future's Nevada plant was financed and criticized by Nevada officials and attacked by Chinese media, which Jia countered.
On July 10, 2017, the company announced that it was abandoning the project to build a plant in Nevada due to financial problems. In August 2018, Faraday Future received an investment of US$854 million from Evergrande Health, a listed company under China Evergrande Group, to fund the establishment of a new joint venture. But just two months later, in October 2018, the parties took each other to the Hong Kong Magistrates' Court, and Jia Yueting sought to terminate the contract; At the same time, Faraday Future began to lay off employees on a large scale, and the company's co-founders and others left one after another. In March 2019, Ninth City announced a US$600 million investment in a new joint venture with Faraday Future, but the market questioned the ability and operation level of the two parties, and Ninth City's stock price closed down 20%.
On January 29, 2021, China's Geely Holding Group announced that it has signed a cooperation agreement with Faraday Future, under which the joint venture between Geely and Foxconn, a subsidiary of Hon Hai, has the opportunity to provide foundry services for Faraday Future. On October 7, 2021, J Capital Research, a U.S. short-selling agency, published a 28-page report questioning Faraday Future's failure to deliver a single car after eight years of operation.
3. Restructuring and resurgence
In order to get out of the predicament, Faraday Future made several restructuring and financing attempts. In 2018, the company received a $2 billion investment from Evergrande, a U.S. investment company, but the cooperation between the two parties did not go smoothly due to follow-up funding problems. Since then, the company has raised multiple rounds of financing and successfully listed on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol FFIE in 2021 through a merger with Property Solutions Acquisition Corp, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).
Faraday Future has experienced a series of major events between 2021 and 2024.
July 22, 2021: Faraday Future is listed on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol "FFIE".
November 28, 2021: Faraday Future is in danger of being delisted due to the failure to report its Q3 2021 financial results on time.
April 15, 2022: Faraday Future announced additional disciplinary action as part of an internal investigation, including the dismissal of its founder and former CEO Jia Yueting as an executive officer.
May 13, 2022: The company announces the commencement of operations at its Hanford facility.
January 18, 2023: Faraday Future has reached a strategic cooperation with Huanggang City, planning to set up a Chinese headquarters for industrial layout.
January 27, 2023: Faraday Future appoints Cindy Mok as Executive Director of the Board of Directors to advance the mass production and delivery of the FF 91 Futurist.
May 31, 2023: Faraday Future held the "FF 91 & Faraday Future 2.0 Final Launch" event, announcing the official launch of the FF 91 2.0 Futurist Alliance, limited to 300 units worldwide.
December 28, 2023: Faraday Future received a notice from Nasdaq regarding delisting or non-compliance with the rules or criteria for continued listing.
April 30, 2024: Faraday Future announced its delisting, being delisted from the Nasdaq exchange, and said it would appeal.
May 7, 2024: Jia Yueting announced that he would start the commercialization of personal IP to make money to pay off debts, and said that he would become the co-CEO of FF, but the company's board of directors denied this.
May 18, 2024: The stock price soared from a low of $0.04 to a high of $3.9 in a few days, nearly 100 times. At the close of trading on Friday, it turned 37.58% lower to close at $1.03, a nearly four-fold intraday move.
On the investment exchange platform Xueqiu, some investors who have bought FF in the past said that even if it soars, the return on investment is still far away.
The share capital is 80 shares for 1 share in August 2023 and then 3 shares for 1 share in February 2024.
I bought 30,000 shares, which were combined into 125 shares. The timing of the purchase is that it has fallen by 99% from the high, that is, to 1% of the high. Then it fell to 99.9%. That is, those who bought at the highest point fell to nearly 1 in 100,000 at the lowest.
I don't know how many times the additional issuance has been issued in the middle, and these people will never have the possibility of recovering their capital, and they will always ...........
Fourth, product launch and market challenges
In 2022, Faraday Future announced that its first production car, the FF 91, had begun mass production, with deliveries scheduled for the second half of 2022. However, fierce market competition and the ever-changing industry environment have made Faraday Future face great challenges. Electric vehicle manufacturers such as Tesla, NIO, and Xpeng occupy a leading position in technology and market share, which has brought a lot of pressure to Faraday Future.
Fifth, look to the future
Despite the difficulties, Faraday Future did not abandon its original vision. The company continues to be committed to technological innovation and product optimization, hoping to win the favor of consumers through differentiated products and high-end market positioning. In the future, whether Faraday Future can find its place in the fierce market competition still needs the test of time and the market.
epilogue
Faraday Future's history is a dramatic history of entrepreneurship, from high-profile appearances to crises and restarts, the story of Faraday Future has given us a lot to think about. In today's rapid development of the electric vehicle industry, innovation and adapting to market changes are the key to the survival and development of enterprises. We look forward to Faraday Future ushering in a real spring in the future and bringing more surprises and possibilities to the electric vehicle industry."