After having abandoned (officially put on hold) its massive $1 billion electric vehicle factory in Nevada, Faraday Future is now announcing a new less ambitious factory to bring its electric car to market.
The new facility is in Hanford, California – roughly halfway between Los Angeles, where FF is based, and Silicon Valley.
Unlike the North Las Vegas project, which they were building from the ground up, they are taking over an old tarp manufacturing facility of about 1 million sq. ft.
It’s significant in size, but there’s a lot of work and money needed to turn it into an electric vehicle production facility.
Stefan Krause, COO/CFO of Faraday Future, commented on the announcement of the closing of the lease:
“We know there is a lot of work and risks ahead, but this event represents a major step forward for the company. Investors invest in people, and our employees continue to be Faraday Future’s strongest asset. As we begin this next phase in our company’s history, our efforts to build out strong corporate leadership will bring a new focus to Faraday Future and deliver on our commitments to employees, investors, suppliers, and future users, who have shown exceptional patience and resilience through the company’s difficult times.”
Throughout those difficult times, the company insisted that they still plan to bring to market their FF91, a large all-electric crossover, next year.
With the announcement of this new factory, Dag Reckhorn, Faraday Future’s VP of Global Manufacturing, reiterated the timeline:
“Our new production facility is the latest demonstration of our commitment to getting FF 91 on the road by the end of 2018 Despite significant head winds on the path ahead of us, we are laser-focused on that one key milestone.”
Here’s a picture of the current facility and a rendering of what Faraday Future is envisioning:
On Saturday, some FF employees drove up to the site to start the cleaning up and rebuilding process.
But there are still tenants on locations who are not moving out until November, which is why FF can’t ramp up its effort at the plant until next year.
Nonetheless, they are sticking to their production goal of “by the end of 2018”. They aim for the new facility to employ up to 1,300
workers over 3 shifts once at full capacity.
The company offered no update on its financial situation, which was seen as precarious following several lawsuits over nonpayments earlier this year and the very public financial troubles of Jia Yueting, FF’s main backer.
Since then, they hired former BMW/Deutsche Bank CFO Stefan Krause to straighten up their finances and look for new investors.
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