Five years after it was originally promised, and five months after the start of production was announced, Faraday Future has delivered one FF91 electric SUV.
The first customer vehicle was delivered August 12 to a representative of dealership Private Collection Motors at the latter’s facility in Costa Mesa, California, according to a Faraday Future press release. The car was presented by Jia Yueting, former financial backer and former CEO of Faraday, who now holds the title of “chief product and user ecosystem officer.”
Faraday plans to hand over additional cars to the first batch of customers individually, at later dates.
The first customer FF91 was the top 2.0 Futurist Alliance launch version, which boasts an EPA-estimated 381-mile range from a 142-kwh battery pack and a $309,000 base price before destination. A three-motor powertrain produces 1,050 hp, which Faraday claims will get the FF91 from 0-60 mph in 2.2 seconds, and on to a top speed of 155 mph.
Faraday is also accepting pre-orders for the regular production FF91 2.0 Futurist grade, which shares specs with the Alliance launch edition, but has a $249,000 base price. A lower-level FF91 2.0 version is also planned, but Faraday hasn’t released any specifics.
The path Faraday took to get to this point has been anything but straightforward. The company emerged from stealth mode in 2015 and promised its long-range EV (not yet named) in 2017. This was before Rivian emerged from stealth, and when Lucid was still in its previous guise as supplier Atieva.
Faraday showed the FFZero1 concept car in January 2016, followed by a concept version of the FF91 a year later. Just one month after that first glimpse of the FF91, in February 2017, Faraday claimed to have 64,000 reservations. Later that year, it announced a $1 billion factory in North Las Vegas, Nevada, with the goal of starting production by 2018. The site was chosen in part thanks to a generous incentive package from the state.
The motivation behind Faraday was Jia and his LeEco tech company. But even before the initial FF91 concept was unveiled in 2017, LeEco began running out of cash. Faraday abandoned plans for the Nevada factory before much work was done, instead repurposing a former Pirelli tire factory in Hanford, California.
Faraday revealed its production FF91 body in 2018, and a completed “production intent” vehicle after that, but persistent financial issues stalled progress. The company announced the start of production at the end of March without showing any completed customer cars. Now we’ve seen exactly one.
