Abstract: Building a car does not mean that it can be sold and sold well. Besides, it hasn't been built yet
▲ Image source IC
Text | Wang Jingyi
Edit | Zhao Cheng
At 8:00 a.m. Beijing time on February 24, Faraday Future (NASDAQ: FFIE) announced that the first FF 91 "quasi-mass production" car was completed.
What is "quasi-mass production"? Faraday Future related people told Caijingqiche (ID: caijingqiche) that the quasi-production car will be used for final engineering verification and certification work in the next few months, and the FF 91 will be mass-produced in the third quarter of 2022.
It has been 8 years since Faraday Future was established, and FF 91 has been released for 5 years, and this ultra-luxury electric vehicle that benchmarks Maybach and Ferrari has not yet begun mass production - Weilai Automobile, which has also been established for 8 years, has already ushered in the 100,000th mass production car off the production line.
Even if this SUV, which costs more than a million dollars, is successfully mass-produced, its form is still greater than the content. Faraday Future Global CEO Bi Fukang admitted: "The production of FF 91 is not very large, mainly to prove that we have the ability to deliver products to users. ”
Faraday Future previously claimed that FF 91 received more than 14,000 bookings, but after being shorted by short-selling agencies, the company admitted that there were only 300 paid bookings.
Faraday's future in financial distress does not yet have a clear future.
Released in 2017, 2022 is still not outdated?
At 8:00 a.m. Beijing time on February 24, a live broadcast was held at Faraday Future's Hanford plant in California, USA, to witness the completion of its first FF 91 "quasi-mass production" car.
It is both "quasi-mass production" and "the first one", which shows the caution of the FF 91 production process. But the signal is clear: the company that has repeatedly produced "jump tickets" is sparing no effort to tell investors and consumers that FF 91 is coming out of the PPT.
Released in 2017, the FF 91 is defined as a luxury electric vehicle that fully considers the user experience. For example, when the user is approaching, the car can confirm the identity through facial recognition, load the personal configuration from the cloud server, and open the door for the user. After getting on the bus, the user can select the destination with voice control and the system will choose the best path. Upon arrival, the FF 91 can park automatically.
In terms of power, the FF 91 is equipped with 1050 horsepower, a range of more than 370 miles (close to 600 kilometers), and an acceleration time of 0-60 miles in 2.4 seconds (about equal to zero hundred kilometers of acceleration time).
In terms of riding experience, the rear of the FF 91 provides a 27-inch display, which is twice the size of the iPad Pro screen, and passengers can have video conferencing or entertainment in the back seat, while relieving stress through zero-gravity seat massage, and legroom can reach 48.9 inches.
Power and riding experience as two major selling points, in the eyes of Bi Fukang, this model released in 2017, even in 2022, still has a strong market competitiveness.
FF 91 has not announced a specific price so far, and the industry is generally expected to be more than 180,000 US dollars or 1 million yuan. FF 91 has already begun to accept reservations, with a reservation fee of RMB 20,000.
In the past two years, Faraday Future has invited a number of European and American media reporters to take a test drive FF 91, and the reporters have basically praised this ultra-luxury car.
For example, the reporter of the famous American investment publication "Barron's Weekly" commented after the FF 91 test ride in New York that this car, like the Maybach and Bentley, is used to sit rather than to drive. The rear row is equipped with a flat-lying seat similar to an astronaut, which can fully stretch out when you want to rest, and you can use a giant screen to hold a conference call or watch a movie when you are not resting, like a moving office.
Autocar reporters from automotive media outlet Autocar focused more on the driving experience: the FF 91 was quiet and didn't make a noise when the traffic jam was blocked; when the road conditions improved, the vehicle rushed out "with silky smoothness and rocket-like acceleration."
Made, and then what?
The industry generally believes that the car is a good car, but the business prospects and the company situation are elusive.
In early October 2021, J Capital released a short report against Faraday Future, questioning that a significant portion of the 14,000 orders Faraday Future received were forgeries, that promises to build factories in China were never implemented, that dozens of suppliers were sued, and that technical issues such as batteries were also hampering mass production.
"Faraday Future is nothing more than a barrel of money collected from American investors and poured into a debt black hole created by its founder, Jia Yueting, China's best-known securities fraudster." The short report commented.
In this regard, Faraday Future set up a special commission of inquiry and ultimately admitted that the claim of 14,000 bookings could be misleading, as only 300 of them had been paid for and none of the others had been paid.
Selling 2,400 vehicles in 2022, this is the sales target of FF 91 revealed by Bi Fukang in an interview with foreign media, "Although this number is not sexy, it is realistic." ”
At present, Faraday Future is sprinting to mass production of FF 91. With its listing, Faraday Future raised $1 billion, mainly for factory investment.
Bi Fukang said that the company has sufficient funds to complete the FF 91 project, but expects to need an additional $1.5 billion for the follow-up FF81 and FF71 projects.
Faraday is still out of financial trouble and needs sustained financing. As of the third quarter of 2021, Chuck McBride, CFO of Faraday Future, said that the company has accumulated a loss of $2.8 billion since its inception and is expected to achieve profitability and positive cash flow by 2024.
Since its listing in July 2021, Faraday Future has not released financial reports, and the third quarter of 2021 financial reports have been delayed so far.
For faraday Future, which is tightly funded, mass production is difficult enough, and the follow-up sales channels, after-sales maintenance, and the construction of charging networks are things that cannot be covered in the short term.
At the same time, Faraday Future has begun preparations for a second production car. On February 10, it announced that it has signed a contract with South Korea-based automaker Myoung Shin Co., Ltd. to start production of its second electric model, the FF 81, in 2024.
The pricing of the FF 91 determines that this will not be a volume model, mainly used to set a brand benchmark, and the follow-up Faraday future plans FF 81 and FF 71 models, respectively, benchmarking the BMW 5 Series and Tesla Model 3, entering the mass market.
But the problem is that building a car doesn't mean it can be sold and sold well. Besides, it hasn't been built yet.