Jia Yueting returned to China, and fought here?
Author | Tetsu Ta
Edit | Wen Liang
How many years does it take for the new car-making forces to go from the establishment of the company to the launch of the first mass-produced model?
The NIO ES8 has gone below the line after two years and five months, the Xiaopeng G3 has three years, and the ideal One is three years and ten months.
And FF91, ten months after Faraday's future was founded seven years ago, finally ushered in the release of quasi-production models today.
At 8:00 a.m. Beijing time, Faraday Future officially announced the production plan of its first quasi-production model, the FF 91, through online live broadcast.
Amid the skepticism of "PPT car", the announcement of faraday future plan can be regarded as a milestone event in its car-making process, or as a counterattack against short reports.
However, at a time when smart cars are becoming more and more diverse, can a model spanning five years from launch to mass production still open consumers' wallets? In the moment of multiple crises, can FF 91 provide it with funds to build follow-up models and prompt Jia Yueting to return to China?
Ultra luxury electric SUV FF 91
Under the slogan "Born in California.Global DNA," Faraday Future broadcast live at its California facility to announce the completion of its first FF 91 pre-production vehicle.
In the future, Faraday will focus on the verification and compliance testing of FF 91 in the future, and plans to start production in the third quarter of this year (previously said to be in July this year). However, construction is still underway at its California plant, where the first quasi-production vehicle was painted.
(Faraday Future California Plant)
In the eyes of Faraday Future Global CEO Bi Fukang, this model, which has been announced in 2017, still has strong market competitiveness even if it is 5 years late.
He believes that the FF 91, positioned as an ultra-luxury electric SUV, has two unique selling points.
The first is performance. "If you look at the overall momentum or acceleration, we're ahead, or at least one of the leaders." Bi Fukang once introduced it to the media.
In terms of power, the FF 91 has a built-in modular variable electric drive chassis architecture that includes the battery, the powertrain system and its patented component "trapezoidal inverter". The push of the three motors brings its power to 1050 hp, with an acceleration of 0-60 mph in 2.39 seconds.
1050 horsepower, the power of today's world's top sports car.
In 2017, Faraday Future organized a competition in Las Vegas, racing the FF 91 with the most accelerated models such as Bentley Bentayga, Ferrari 488 GTB, Tesla Model X P100D, Tesla Model S P100D, etc., and finally the FF 91 won the first place in 2.39 seconds. The result also drew back tesla CEO Musk, who said that the Tesla Model S P100D finished car can accelerate as low as 0-60 mph in 2.34 seconds.
The second is the ride experience.
According to reports, the rear passengers of the FF 91 can eliminate pressure through zero gravity seat massage, and the legroom can reach 48.9 inches. Thanks to the 27-inch display and patented connectivity module, passengers can have video conferencing or entertainment in the back.
The FF 91 adopts a 130kWh battery pack with a cruising range of 700 kilometers under NEDC conditions, providing users with a better riding experience.
In terms of autonomous driving, which currently represents the level of intelligent technology, FF 91 does not seem to be lagging behind.
The FF 91 is equipped with NVIDIA DRIVE Orin System-on-Chip (SoC) and Velodyne's first solid-state lidar, the Velary H800, with certain autonomous driving functions. However, Faraday Future said that FF 91 will have automatic driving functions based on highways, urban roads and parking, but was not mentioned at the press conference, and this function has been confirmed to be postponed to subsequent mass production models.
Bi Fukang explained that Faraday Future can not fully independently develop autonomous driving systems, only through partners or government authorization, otherwise it will face high government supervision. However, despite this, he said that the FF 91 still has L2+ level autonomous driving capabilities.
Top-of-the-line sports car-like acceleration, a comfortable ride, and the positioning of an ultra-luxury passenger car have made it sell for up to $250,000 (about 1585325 yuan), about twice the price of the Model S Plaid.
In the past two years, Faraday Future has invited a number of media in the United States to test drive the mass-produced version of the FF 91. Most of them gave high praise to the acceleration performance, voice control, rear comfort and other aspects of the mass production version of the FF 91: "The bulls that have been bragged on the PPT have basically been realized. ”
At the time of this live broadcast, Bi Fukang said that FF 91 set the advantages of SUVs, cars, and racing cars as a new species.
Final mass production deadline
From its first exhibition at CES in 2017 to its mass production in the third quarter of 2022, the FF 91 has a long road to mass production compared to other brands sold on the market.
If combined with Faraday's future past, it is not difficult to find that the production plan of FF 91 has jumped tickets many times, but it seems that since last year, Faraday Future has changed its previous style and completed the research and development test of FF 91 according to its public plan.
Faraday Future, which has been skipping tickets for five years, why is it releasing mass production models at the current time node?
First, this could be Faraday Future's way of fighting back against short-selling agencies.
Although Faraday Future has been questioned by short-selling agencies many times, the tragic degree of the past is difficult to compare with the consequences of J Capital Research's short-selling.
Less than 4 months after Faraday Future successfully landed on the U.S. stock market, short-selling agency J Capital Research (MegaKin Investment) released a 28-page short report questioning Faraday's future financial situation, the number of car bookings, mass production capacity, and pointing out that Faraday Future does not have the ability to produce vehicles. J Capital Research said it made several visits to Faraday's future restart of its Hanford, California plant, which showed no signs of already producing cars.
In addition, J Capital Research noted that 78% of the 14,000 FF 91 orders Faraday Future received came from a private company.
In response to the short report, Faraday Future set up a "special committee of independent directors" to conduct an internal investigation, and said that its financial report for the third quarter of 2021 will be delayed due to internal investigation. The consequence of the delay in the release of the financial report is that Faraday Future received a delisting warning letter from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and its market value was also cut off.
For the questioning of short-selling institutions, Jia Yueting, chief product and user officer of Faraday Future, responded in the circle of friends: "Cold rice is hot and fried, nonsense. In July 2022, In Hanford, California, a new species was born. ”
However, Faraday Future recently admitted that of the 14,000 orders it received, only 300 paid orders were a slap in the face for Jia Yueting. In order to fight back against the short report, Faraday Future's few weapons were produced and delivered FF 91 as planned.
Second, it is closely related to its existing funds.
Faraday's future listing has raised nearly $1 billion, clearing the financial hurdles for its mass production of cars. At that time, Bi Fukang said that it was expected that the company's net cash could support the production and development of FF 91, but when FF 91 was mass-produced, the company also needed to raise funds for continuous operation.
Combined with Faraday Future's past financial position, this may be Faraday's last chance to push the FF 91 into mass production.
Investment information agency MARKET REALIST has pointed out that Faraday Future's bank balances will only be $1 million at the end of 2020.
After Faraday's future listing, the falling stock price is difficult to provide sufficient financial support for it. Affected by the delisting warning letter, Faraday Future's stock price fell to $6.17 per share in November last year, and its market value has shrunk by more than 50% compared with when it was first listed.
Faraday Future, which had anticipated the company's financial position in the third quarter of 2021, said the company had accumulated a loss of about $2.8 billion since its inception and that the loss would continue.
As a result, Faraday Future is currently using the remaining net cash to drive mass production of the FF 91 and even keep the company alive.
In the end, this is the deadline that Faraday Future has set for itself.
"We are committed to delivering our first car within 12 months and we will achieve this goal." Bi Fukang once said this to automotive media Road Show.
To remind himself that he had to deliver his first car to customers by July, he said, he installed screens for countdowns to production days in every room at the company's headquarters. Every day, the number on the screen is subtracted by one.
In addition, in order to avoid outside interference, BiFukang said that he had not viewed news related to Faraday Future for many years because "most of them are not very good"
The completion of mass production deliveries in the third quarter is Faraday's last bet on dignity, credibility and even life in the future.
If mass production is successful, survival is still difficult
Even if the FF 91 is successfully mass-produced and delivered, its formal significance may far outweigh the benefits.
The price of millions of yuan is destined to have a small audience and it is difficult to go to the mass market to create greater profits for it.
Bi Fukang also said: "The production of FF 91 is not very large, mainly to prove that we have the ability to deliver products to users." He expects that the sales volume of FF 91 in two years will reach 40,000 units.
Perhaps it is for this purpose that Faraday Future positioned its first model as an ultra-luxury passenger car.
Extremely high acceleration performance, autonomous driving functions and the integration of smart cockpits are proof of Faraday's future level of technology and the ability to mass-produce lower-performance models.
After years of burning billions of dollars to prove itself, Faraday will launch mass-market models in the future.
At present, Faraday Future has announced that the follow-up production models are FF 81 and FF 71. Among them, Faraday Future has cooperated with South Korean automaker Myoung Shin to develop a second electric model, the FF 81, which is expected to be put into production in 2024.
However, if Faraday Future's net cash is fully used for the development and production of FF 91, there will be no excess funds to support the development of FF 81.
Internally, tight funding limits Faraday's future moves.
Faraday Future CFO, Chuck McBride, predicted that an additional $1.5 billion would be needed to develop the FF 81 and FF 71 models, and that the company would achieve profitability and positive cash flow in 2024. In this live broadcast, Bi Fukang said that the company will be profitable in 2025.
However, Faraday's future financial situation is not good, and its initial production model is difficult to provide a large amount of money for its short-term audience, and Faraday's future successor models may be difficult to launch.
As far as the market is concerned, Faraday Future lacks market competitiveness.
At present, Faraday Future can only barely achieve FF 91 mass production, and has not established a perfect sales and service system, which means that Faraday Future is not only difficult to sell FF 91 offline, but also difficult to achieve follow-up services such as charging pile construction, maintenance and after-sales, which will limit the sales of FF 91 and make it difficult to expand Faraday's future influence.
In addition, under the competition of well-known brand models, it is still uncertain whether a small number of target user groups are willing to buy for the FF 91.
Therefore, even if Faraday future fulfills its promise to complete the mass production delivery of FF 91, but without the support of follow-up funds, FF 91 may become Faraday's future masterpiece, and it is difficult to say that the release of subsequent models and the survival of the company.
Faraday Future, which relies heavily on external blood transfusions, has embarked on the biggest game of fate.
Returning home?
Like Faraday Future, it is not uncommon for car brands with products held high to the market. This is true of Tesla, NIO and Gaohe Motors.
Among them, Ding Lei, former co-founder of LeTV SuperCar and vice chairman of the global chairman of China and Asia Pacific, who was on the same front as Jia Yueting, has taken Gaohe Automobile to open his own high-end electric vehicle market.
Faraday's future, however, was ill-fated, with the first model taking years to reach mass production. One of the key factors in this is the past of its executive Jia Yueting, which casts a shadow over his company.
When Faraday landed in the US stock market in the future, Jia Yueting once told reporters with a smile: "It is necessary to return to China." ”
Today, the mass production of FF 91 is imminent, and the registered capital of Faraday Future's Chinese subsidiary Ruiyi Automobile (Beijing) Co., Ltd. has recently increased from 10 million yuan to 30 million yuan.
The release of the mass production of FF 91 is the closest Jia Yueting is to the opportunity to return to China, and it also hides the crisis of pouring out the dream of returning to China.
END
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