Electric vehicle startup Faraday Future (FF) confirmed today that it will be the title sponsor of the 2016 Formula E Long Beach ePrix race, which is now known as the 2016 Faraday Future Long Beach ePrix and will take place on Saturday, April 2, 2016. Gates open at 7:00 am with race start scheduled for 4:00 pm.
The company also confirmed that it will display its FFZER01 concept in the eVillage Fan Zone during the race weekend.
The concept was first unveiled at CES earlier this year.
FF published a Q&A with Nick Sampson, who has been the face of the company so far, about the Formula E announcement. In the Q&A, Sampson opened the door to the possibility of FF participating in future seasons of the Formula E.
At the moment, the teams competing in championship are all using the same vehicles , but the organisation plans to open up the race to automakers and tech companies in the future.
Here’s the Q&A:
What draws you to Formula E?
Well, I suppose it’s no secret that I am particularly drawn to competitive racing. I’ve spent countless hours refining high-performance sports vehicles and racing cars at Jaguar, Lotus, and – quite honestly – even in my spare time while working at many other positions, thereafter.
I’m excited to experience this new frontier of automotive competition. Some have this misconception that electric vehicles are somehow “boring” – I think Formula E does a great deal to dispel that theory. These vehicles not only rival their traditional counterparts; they will soon surpass them.
Electric vehicles like FFZERO1 operate more dynamically – for example, we have a motor for each wheel, each controlled individually, optimizing power outputs for more deliberate handling and greater performance. This allows drivers to customize the way their platform operates to truly unleash its potential under their individual driving techniques.
These vehicles are far from boring – on the contrary, they harness far more possibilities than anything we’ve seen before.
How does our involvement with Formula E align with FF’s greater vision?
Formula E is about far more than a few individual, competing race cars. The tournament series showcases the rapid advancement of electric vehicles, in general. It’s an exhibition for the breadth of potential that these technologies can offer – oftentimes leading to revolutionary results.
For instance, Formula E is exploring the potential of connectivity with a new in-race voting feature called “FanBoost.” With it, you can directly support your favorite driver by voting for them online – during the race, the top three drivers with the most votes receive a 30 kWh driver-activated momentary speed boost!
It’s a fascinating, community-driven experience that bridges the connection between drivers and their fans. This novel look at “connection” resembles the communicative capabilities that we are integrating into FF vehicles.
Formula E also serves as a celebration of green, sustainable innovation, linked with assertive performance. This interactivity between rapid technological advancement, entertainment and environmental responsibility is absolutely central to FF.
Does FF have any plans to compete in future seasons of Formula E?
FF will always be looking into the possibility of putting cutting-edge engineering and high technology pursuits to the test – perhaps even through entering automotive competitions. We have no firm plans and are not making any announcements at this time.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Some more BIG NEWS for Faraday Future. What a joke . they are sponsoring the event and they don’t even have a car to compete with. This company will do anything to try to stay in the news. I’ve heard Nick Sampson, no way he left Tesla to join FF. He must have been fired.
To be fair, no one with a car can compete in the Formula E. I don’t get the hate for FF. I didn’t like the FFZER01 either, but at the end of the day, it’s one more company investing in EVs.
It’s one more company producing vaporware
i don’t hate FF Fred but with all their hype and the shroud of mystery, they show up the the CES with a model of a car that doesn’t even work. It’s like a game to them and I don’t like it. If you have nothing to show don’t play with peoples heads. When Tesla was coming out with the Roadster they never played these games. They serve no purpose other than to aggravate people. Imagine if you attended the CES just to see FF’s car through all the hype. I’m sure you would have been pretty disappointed.
We had someone (Seth) at CES and yes we were disappointed, but still I’m far from convinced FF is vaporware. we reported a bunch of times on their engineering team and it’s really an all-star team.
You can’t compare them to Tesla. Compare any startup to Tesla and you will be disappointed.
It’s just the way they go around it. Additionally many of the employees that came from Tesla didn’t quit, they were fired. They may have an all start team but to date, at least to our knowledge, they have yet to produce anything. And now it appears they are having issues with money and Nevada is re-visiting the deal they gave them
I can understand having reservations, but I think people need to compare it less to Tesla and more to a young startup. They put up the money to satisfy Nevada’s gov and they are going forward with the factory.
Fred, where are you located? Each time I post it says I did 16 hours ago.
I’m in Quebec, but the site is US-based. It’s a bug with the WordPress comment system. We are looking to upgrade to Disqus in the near future.
I’m not saying they were all let go but some were as far as I can tell.
What about the Billionaires seed money I thought that was in question. Additionally with all the articles written about Nevada’s concerns I never saw any saying that they put up the money that was being requested.
Since you know a lot about Tesla are you familiar with my Nephew. That quote came from one of your articles,
The article was “Tesla is building up its ‘Tesla Energy’ division with key employees from its core business and more hires”
I’m not familiar with him beyond what I wrote in the article. Though he seems to be a rising star in the organisation.
He is and has. He has worked under JB for years. In fact if you can locate a blog “The Spin Stops Here” there’s and interesting article about the traction control on the Roadster which he had a large hand in. And that was before it was actually produced. We are all very proud of him and feel he’s a small part of our history.
https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/spin-stops-here
I don’t know whether I told you this or not Fred but this is my nephew: “Drew Baglino has been with Tesla since 2006, making him one of the company’s longest standing engineer. Until 2014, he was Director of Powertrain Systems Architecture, Modeling, and Controls. He then went on to lead the Tesla Energy engineering team and earlier this month, like Jaramillo, he was promoted to Vice President.” I guess you can understand my bias.
BTW, I really do enjoy your articles, very informative.
Keep the articles coming Fred, I read every one
Apple Faraday Future.
What does that mean? If you think Apple is FF that has already been proven wrong.
Fred, any idea what “Apple Faraday Future.” is supposed to mean?
Fred…I just did a bit of checking on the four Tesla employees that FF boasts as having in their employ. Interestingly enough, they all worked for other companies after their exit from Tesla. Not one came directly to FF from Tesla. Funny they don’t mention their previous jobs, just Tesla. Just a slight manipulation of words leading people to believe they left Tesla to go to FF which they didn’t.