Amid the skepticism, Faraday Future (Faraday Future) has reached a new milestone. At 8:00 a.m. Beijing time on February 24, Faraday Future held the off-line ceremony of the first FF91 "quasi-mass production car", and the FF91 seems to be a small step closer to us.
Quasi-production vehicles roll off the production line
At FF's Hanford, California plant, the FF91's first quasi-production car was officially unveiled. We can simply look at the "final" look of FF91 based on the official information.
From the appearance point of view, this car is more like a crossover, looking a bit like the high-tech HiPhi X that has been running on the road in China, but the official called it a "new species". It has a wheelbase of more than 5 meters 2 and a wheelbase of 3 meters 2, thanks to the configuration of three motors, even with such a large body can achieve 0-96 km/h acceleration in 2.39 seconds, its maximum power has reached 1050 horses, and the peak torque is 1800 Nm. The pure tram has a range of more than 300 miles (about 483 kilometers).
At today's press conference, Jia Yueting also said that the performance of this car is better than that of Maybach and most Ferraris. However, the comparison of electric vehicles to compare fuel vehicles is somewhat "invincible".
Bi Fukang and Jia Yueting
At today's launch ceremony, Faraday Future did not announce specific changes and more parameters about the vehicle, but through the appearance, it can be seen that the sensor layout has changed, and the two versions of the model are still in the process of "change". In previous versions, the FF91 had a relatively rare lidar mounted in the front cover and was a liftable design. But a quasi-production version released today eliminates that design, moving the lidar above the front windshield.
The position of the bulge above the front windshield is expected to be lidar
FF CEO Bi Fukang said that the quasi-production car released today has been basically consistent with the final mass production car in terms of design, configuration and other aspects, and will be tested in the next few months.
The FF91 photo released on FF's official website is partially different from today's quasi-production car version
The car is committed to taking the high-end route from the inside out, after Bi Fukang also said that the price of this car will be higher than 200,000 US dollars (about 1.26 million yuan), if imported into China, the price will be as high as 2 million yuan. However, to this day, the specific selling price, parameters, listing, delivery date have not been released, what is the status of FF91?
A car has not been "finalized" in 5 years
Regarding the current situation of FF91, Pinchai sorted out all kinds of information released by FF officials in recent years and found that it has been "released" at least three times.
The FF91 was first released in 2017, even though it was the first production car of Faraday's future, but it was closer to the feeling of a "concept car" at the time. In August 2018, the FF91's first "Pre-production car" officially rolled off the production line. In the years since, FF has published a lot of information about the FF91 tests.
Until December 2021, FF released the latest progress of FF on its official WeChat public account. It said it has now completed its third "milestone" – the start of infrastructure construction in the remaining production areas, including body shops, powertrain shops, warehouses and final assembly shops. The fourth "milestone" to be ushered in is the mass production of Pre-production vehicles for final engineering verification and certification. And in the video, FF employees said that the current Pre-production car has been 30% complete.
However, before today's off-line ceremony, FF first conducted a live broadcast of some areas of the factory. Judging from the live broadcast, although many equipment has been put in place, the factory is still in the construction stage and has not seen the production line that has been formed.
Factory painting equipment shown in a live show before the roll-off ceremony
It is not known how the "pre-production car" released in 2018 is different from the "pre-production car" that has not yet been completed at the end of 2021, but the car released today did not use the term pre-production car, but used the term "production-Intent" for the first one. If you think about it from an English point of view, under normal circumstances, Production-Intent is indeed closer to a stage of mass production than Pre-production ( pre-production car) ( pre-production car) ( pre-production car ) .
In 2018, Jia Yueting when FF's first pre-production car rolled off the production line
Cars are indeed different from digital products and other categories, a new car usually has an unveiling conference, a downline ceremony, a listing conference and other publicity nodes, but for the FF91 car, from the initial debut to today's "quasi-mass production car", it has gone through five years. Not being able to come up with a product that is ultimately available for delivery has worn away most people's patience. FF's goal is to mass-produce and deliver the FF91 car this summer, and whether it can complete this goal is indeed marked with a question mark.
For FF, even if it can really build a car, this is just the first step.
Credit bankruptcy, he dares to build, who dares to buy?
At home, Jia Yueting has been "credit bankrupt", and his situation in the United States is not very ideal. In October last year, J Capital Research, a U.S. short-selling agency, released a 28-page report questioning FF's ability to build cars, arguing that "a car cannot be sold." In addition, FF91, which opened reservations last year, was exposed at the beginning of this year, and only 300 of the 14,000 orders were paid, which increased uncertainty for FF, which was ready to sell cars this summer.
FF currently plans to launch the high-end route FF91 this summer, and signed a contract with Myoung Shin, a South Korean auto parts supplier and manufacturer, to jointly build a more "high-volume" and lower-priced model FF81 in 2024. This development route is also similar to the early development process of electric vehicles - first the introduction of high-end models for high-income people, and then the launch of the popularization route.
However, the current electric vehicle market is no longer the case in the past, and the road of FF91 is afraid that it will be "more and more difficult to walk".
This summer, I am afraid that it is the "last chance" of FF, if it can not come up with more substantive things, FF is not far from the real "suffocation".
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