Faraday Future says it owns the land it planned to build on and is committed to the site for “long-term” vehicle manufacturing.
According to CNN.com, the main investor for FF, Jia Yueting, has had his assets frozen due to loans from various financial institutions.
There’s no word yet on which companies Faraday might be courting, or where in the world they might be located. The company stopped construction on the proposed project a year ago, after falling behind in payment to AECOM, the global construction company hired to do site work for the factory.
While Faraday Future plans on keeping the limited amount of land it owns in North Las Vegas, it is unclear what objective this land will be put to in the future.
The Chinese-funded, Gardena-based electric-car startup said Monday that it is scaling back its already scaled-back plans.
Faraday Future’s cutbacks come, in part, from the financial struggles of key investor Jia Yueting, the billionaire behind Chinese internet conglomerate LeEco. Faraday Future is an automaker that has gone down into the dumps recently with its declaration that it was stopping all plans of starting an assembly unit in North Las Vegas. Established auto companies are releasing more electric options and it’s unclear whether President Donald Trump’s administration will continue tax breaks that incentivize the industry and motivate buyers. “I think the next 12 months are going to be very telling”.
The company is attempting an exceptionally expensive feat – one that Tesla has not pulled off, Autotrader executive analyst Michelle Krebs said. “You’ve got an industry that is capital intensive and you’ve got an electric vehicle market that is kind of shaky, so those two things probably are at play”.
There are a lot of companies out there nowadays that seem to be essentially nothing but PR gimmicks – Faraday Future is certainly not alone in that respect – but the company did seem to take that sort of approach to business even further than most.
“We have made a decision to put a hold on our factory at the Apex site in North Las Vegas”, Stefan Krause, FF’s chief financial officer, told The Independent.
“The history of this industry is littered with grand startups that never came true”, Brauer said.