Electric car startup Faraday Future is back in the headlines after signing a lease for a manufacturing facility in Hanford, CA.
The Chinese company took a blow to its public image after a recent blunder in Nevada, where it had planned to invest USD$1 billion in a 3-million-sq-ft facility at the Apex Industrial Park in North Las Vegas. The company had already broken ground in April 2016 before issuing a statement a few months later, putting facility development on hold indefinitely.
This is speculated to be the result of a Chinese court freezing assets belonging to major Faraday Future investor Jia Yeuting and his publicly traded company, Leshi Internet Information & Technology.
The company is now downplaying its ties to Yeuting and the Leshi company, as well as LeEco, another company owned by Yeuting with close ties to Faraday Future and a recent history of financial turmoil.
Stefen Krause, CFO and COO of Faraday Future was quoted by Road Show as saying, “Technically there is no legal relationship with LeEco… They are in one part of our business. They are a supplier and if we would lose them as a supplier, there are many suppliers.”
Faraday Future plans to get back on track by using the already-built facility in California—previously occupied by tire-manufacturer Pirelli—while scaling back some of its more ambitious goals.
The company is seeking to raise $1 billion in new funding to meet its new goals and to begin manufacturing electric vehicles like the FF 91 by the end of 2018, with a production target of 10,000 units annually soon after.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Faraday Future secured a $14 million loan to cover the new lease.
The company still retains ownership of the Nevada Apex site and has not cancelled plans for the location, according to a report by Engadget.
Will Faraday Future find success in stepping away from their biggest Chinese investor? Keep reading with ENGINEERING.com to find out.