With as many Batmobile references as Fisker Automotive had mishaps, Faraday Future has finally had their day in the spotlight and, unfortunately for us, we have about as much additional information on this car as we did when whispers and rumours were first bandied about in summer 2015. To say that Faraday Future intrigued with their particularly conventional electric vehicle (EV) start-up is an understatement; to say that their ultimate reveal disappointed would be devastatingly accurate.
What we knew then: Faraday Future, a start-up founded in 2014 and working out of California, quietly built a staff of employees from many prominent companies in the automotive world, BMW and Tesla to name two, as well as a wide range of skills from the aerospace, medical technology and engineering industries. In an interview with The Verge last year Nick Sampson, Senior Vice President of Faraday Future, shared that their vision was a car that would 'turn up when you needed it' and 'learned your desires as well as the desires of the passengers,' or even cater to individuals who would prefer to subscribe to a car, as you would a magazine or Netflix. Also, though the car that they plan to build would be a multi-cell battery solution much like Tesla's, they plan to manufacture theirs with a higher specific energy than a Tesla Model S. This was a company with big goals. With links to Chinese media conglomerate, LeTV, and news of billion dollar factories in the works, Faraday, for all intents and purposes were not messing around. They planned to have their cars in customers' hands by early 2017.
What we know now: Faraday Future has a really good marketing team, because not many EV start-ups could have generated the hype they gathered over the past few months, and maintained it after the reveal of a car that is decidedly less than promised. The FFZERO1 is still very much a concept and a very ambitious one at that, and for a car that has been likened to the Mercedes F015, more for its autonomous driving hopes and distinctly futuristic design than any other factor, Faraday has a lot of work to do in the way of, well, driving.
Faraday is immensely proud of their Variable Platform Architecture (VPA). The VPA is the powertrain that will underpin the FFZERO1 and all future models Faraday will produce. It will feature a new battery structure that places the battery cells in between the front and rear axles. The variable aspect is key, because the wheelbase can be stretched to accommodate more batteries centrally which will be hooked together in strings. The potential within this structure lies in the varying levels of power and the ease with which Faraday can configure a front, rear, or all-wheel-drive vehicle. Faraday's pride doesn't sound misplaced, if only we had seen the VPA we were led to believe the FFZERO1 was built on we could have been more confident in their achievements. Sampson shared with Road & Track that it will be a couple months before they will have a platform ready for public viewing.
Faraday Future has designs on racing. In the aforementioned interview with The Verge, Sampson confirmed the possibility of a race car, and in the presentation at CES2016 Faraday's chief designer Richard Kim, referred to the FFZERO1 as a race car more than once. With the purported 4 quad motors that produce over 1000-hp, that will carry the car from 0 to 60-mph in less than 3 seconds and reach top speeds of 200-mph, we can agree that it has race car stats, on paper.
The car on display at CES might not be the car Faraday will present once their production model is revealed. Sampson, in a regrettable interview on Faraday's part with Tech Crunch Editor Matt Burns, shared that Faraday does not want to show the public what they are doing with their production cars. Effectively the body shown at CES was not their production content though some of the features on the concept will make it to production. So, really, we are not sure what we will be seeing when Faraday's production model is finally revealed to the world.
Faraday's Future: In the same interview with Tech Crunch, Sampson stated emphatically that the FFZERO1 was an accurate representation of their company, and echoed Richard Kim's sentiments that this was a preview of what the company would produce in the upcoming years, with particular focus on user experience on the car. Phrases like 'a tablet on wheels' and 'a car not of this world' were thrown around to that effect.
Using Tesla as the benchmark, Sampson described the breakneck speed at which their team was moving and hailed it as a positive characteristic of their company because, to date, they have met all their progressive milestones. While this sounds fantastic and they certainly should be applauded for their accomplishments, it stands to reason that we are not that interested in whether or not Faraday moves faster than Tesla, we would like to see a production ready vehicle rather than, in Richard Kim's words 'a concept of concepts.'
As Faraday prepares to break ground on their billion-dollar factory just north of Las Vegas, it might be a tad too early to call foul on their company. Their investors must have seen something that we have not, and as we have nothing to do but accept Sampson's instructions to 'wait and see,' we sit with bated hopes as Faraday continues their show, which is no doubt more for their benefit than ours.
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Faraday future at CES 2016: The latest electric car start-up
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