Last year, we wrote about how Faraday Future may have become the victim of its owning company LeEco's aggressive expansion plans. Contrary to many expectations, Faraday Future actually went ahead and unveiled its car at CES 2017. The demonstration did not go entirely to plan, but definitely reaffirmed some of the belief that it may not be wraps for the promising upstart.
Nearly five months into its previous demonstration, the Faraday Future FF91 electric crossover concept is back, now in the form of a video that alludes to the company holding road tests, or alternatively, managing to bring the car closer to production. If the latest demonstration video is anything to go by, the FF91, successor to the initially unveiled FFZERO1, has been under road tests. It seems to fare alright, and while there are no majorly striking elements in the video, the positive news is that it may actually make its way to production.
The FF91 is a pretty impressive car in its own right, including a 1050bhp engine, 130kWh battery that delivers total range of 608 kilometres, and quotes 0-100kmph acceleration figure of 2.4 seconds. While all of this is quite promising and even outdoes a number of more established supercars, the key lies in the technology inside. Faraday Future reportedly uses a modular platform that will allow the company to make a wider variety of cars with significantly lesser fundamental expenses. The interiors are also modular, with the central console touted to use a driver's smartphone to present a connected interface. Alongside, the FF91 is also in the running for autonomous (or semi-autonomous) driving capabilities. It includes 10 cameras (including front- and rear-facing ones), a dozen ultrasonic sensors, 13 short- and long-distance radars and a high definition lidar packed into the hood.
The Faraday Future FF91 will be vying for production value alongside the Teslas, Googles and Apples of the world, and that task is understandably steep. The company suffered a number of setbacks, with unpaid bills, high debts, lawsuits and employees jumping the seemingly sinking ship. While concrete information is still rather scarce, the new demos and videos may instill more credibility in Faraday Future and help the company achieve its most important goal right now – raise funding. While the latest video may not be absolute proof of FF's progress, it should not be ignored, either.
The product variant of the FF91 may cost somewhere around $250,000 according to estimates, which makes it as expensive as, say, a Bentley Bentayga. It remains to be seen when Faraday Future manages to unveil its production car, and how the rest of its story unfolds.