The post-holiday months are some of the most dreary times of year, especially for the millions of us who live in areas that get rain, snow and cloud cover for days on end. Early January, however, has for petrolheads recently become cause for celebration, as more automotive brands and auto accessory companies take the wraps off their latest and greatest technology at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
The great thing about CES is that is can offer a glimpse at what new developments and technologies will change our lives in the near or distant future. The worst thing about CES is the fact that many of these technologies never come into existence or, if they do, resemble nothing like the hype-generating prototype we all saw on the show floor. And that is precisely where we are with Faraday Future, a company with grand dreams of unseating Tesla as the electric car king.
The hype is strong with this one, with promises from Head of Design Richard Kim of "a 100% sustainable, electric, non-polluting vehicle [that] can be as dynamic as 1,000 horsepower" and modular platforms (a-la Tesla), all backed by funding from the Chinese Netflix and a crew of talented, experienced designers and engineers. They boast that they're moving much faster than Tesla did, but is that necessarily a good thing? The Model S broke Consumer Reports' testing equipment and still manages to have reliability issues after years and years of development.
The Faraday Future FFZERO1 was debuted at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show.
The Future or Fisker?
Several unfavorable comparisons of Faraday Future have been made to Fisker, and they do make a compelling point. Like Fisker, Faraday has the talent, the funding and the compelling design. Unlike Fisker, we have yet to see a real prototype to demonstrate their technology works. they're also going all-in on the EV format, whereas Fisker relied on a range-extended electric vehicle tech like we see in the relatively unpopular Chevy Volt.
There are other differences too, like Faraday's funding source being primarily Chinese, which represents both a massive market, but also a massive risk as the population bubble there has recently caused the government to relax birthing rules. Faraday views China as one of their primary markets, and the volatility could end up costing them in the long run.
The company also has plans and incentives to build a massive factory in Nevada to start cranking out vehicles for both domestic sales and international export. As we've seen with Tesla's gigafactory, these sorts of facilities don't just grow on trees, and timelines end up being pushed back rather significantly to accommodate longer-than-expected build times.
Time Will Tell
As unsatisfying an answer as that may be, only time will tell if Faraday's supposed 750 employees led by industry innovators will be able to produce not just a single vehicle, but a line of cars that rival Tesla for electric vehicle dominance. What we have now are more questions than answers, more promises than tangible assets and more skepticism than optimism.
I say the more, the merrier. Competition has always driven innovation and the industry needs more companies committed to building EVs for mass consumption and not just as an afterthought or because it helps their corporate average fuel economy numbers. As many other OEMs climb more seriously aboard the EV bus, it will be fascinating to see, over the next few years, how the automotive scene develops.