Faraday Future is a Masterpiece of Nonfulfillment, Achieves Even More Debt

Matt Posky
by Matt Posky

When Faraday Future showcased its new car at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, everyone temporarily forgot the company was a structural and monetary dumpster fire. A large portion of that amnesia was the result of the extremely impressive presentation put on for the FF 91’s unveiling. Some of the visual effects used by Faraday in its presentations and propaganda marketing have been so impressive, it left me wondering who the company has trusted with those projects.

One company Faraday outsourced to was The Mill — a New York-based video production company that is suing Faraday for 1.8 million dollars over failure to pay it for a graphic presentation commissioned in September.

This is an exciting return to form for Faraday Future, which announced at CES that the construction of its Nevada factory — stalled due to similar payment issues — should continue shortly.

According to court documents obtained by Jalopnik, Mill gave Faraday an estimate of $1.82 million to produce a “graphic presentation with virtual reality, augmented reality and holographic components” for CES trade show.

Faraday allegedly agreed to a final agreed upon price of $1,822,750 in three installments. The Mill claims it received a single $20,000 payment for work completed, despite repeated requests for more money.

This is the status quo over at Faraday. The second half of last year saw mounting lawsuits from numerous unpaid service providers and vendors.

Despite all of the negative attention leading up to CES, Faraday netted 64,124 reservations for its highly-impressive FF 91 sport utility vehicle. Assuming everyone payed the $5,000 for priority reservations, the company should easily be able to pay off the majority of its debts. However, since there was also an optional free reservation, there is a chance Faraday doesn’t have millions of extra dollars just laying around.

Inside sources have placed the number of paid reservations at around sixty. That amounts to $300,000 which, incredibly enough, is just enough money for Faraday Future to go out of business.

The FF 91 is anticipated to start production in 2018, provided the company building it hasn’t been sued into a black hole.

[Image: Faraday Future]

Matt Posky
Matt Posky

A staunch consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulation. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied with the corporate world and resentful of having to wear suits everyday, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, that man has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed on the auto industry by national radio broadcasts, driven more rental cars than anyone ever should, participated in amateur rallying events, and received the requisite minimum training as sanctioned by the SCCA. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and managed to get a pizza delivery job before he was legally eligible. He later found himself driving box trucks through Manhattan, guaranteeing future sympathy for actual truckers. He continues to conduct research pertaining to the automotive sector as an independent contractor and has since moved back to his native Michigan, closer to where the cars are born. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer — stating that front and all-wheel drive vehicles cater best to his driving style.

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  • Dukeisduke Dukeisduke on Jan 25, 2017

    So "Elizabeth Carmichael" *is* still alive, and "building cars". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twentieth_Century_Motor_Car_Corporation

    • La834 La834 on Apr 27, 2017

      Wow that Wiki page is loaded with inaccuracies. Dale Clifft did *not* design or engineer the Dale; he was a motorcycling enthusiast and tinkerer who built himself a 3-wheeled car by removing the front wheel from a motorcycle and replacing it with two wheels, adding a homemade body over it. Liz Carmichael saw it and preposed setting up a factory to make a car based on Clifft's design. In reality Carmichael was a longtime scammer who had successfully dodged the FBI on counterfeiting charges for the last decade, and her only real interest in Clifft was to lend an air of credibility to the project to attract investors' money. The Dale that emerged was designed by others and had little resemblance to the car that Clifft built. Clifft signed onto Liz's company in its early days as an engineer and consultant after being promised royalties from having his design licensed. He soon grew tired of the increasingly outrageous claims made for the Dale car as well as her secrecy with the corporate books and began to question her motives and honesty. Clifft either quit or was fired after making only $1,000 and spent the rest of his life trying to dissociate himself from the car named for him and the swindle it fronted.

  • Brett Woods Brett Woods on Jan 25, 2017

    It has been said. Faraday Future is a fake business shell posing as a Tesla competitor with the intention of borrowing money solely for the enrichment of the directors. Tesla is the only real constructor in Nevada. By mirroring Tesla (a mimic) it can tap into the lines of credit and investment opened up by Tesla.

  • Kwik_Shift_Pro4X Thankfully I don't have to deal with GDI issues in my Frontier. These cleaners should do well for me if I win.
  • Theflyersfan Serious answer time...Honda used to stand for excellence in auto engineering. Their first main claim to fame was the CVCC (we don't need a catalytic converter!) engine and it sent from there. Their suspensions, their VTEC engines, slick manual transmissions, even a stowing minivan seat, all theirs. But I think they've been coasting a bit lately. Yes, the Civic Type-R has a powerful small engine, but the Honda of old would have found a way to get more revs out of it and make it feel like an i-VTEC engine of old instead of any old turbo engine that can be found in a multitude of performance small cars. Their 1.5L turbo-4...well...have they ever figured out the oil dilution problems? Very un-Honda-like. Paint issues that still linger. Cheaper feeling interior trim. All things that fly in the face of what Honda once was. The only thing that they seem to have kept have been the sales staff that treat you with utter contempt for daring to walk into their inner sanctum and wanting a deal on something that isn't a bare-bones CR-V. So Honda, beat the rest of your Japanese and Korean rivals, and plug-in hybridize everything. If you want a relatively (in an engineering way) easy way to get ahead of the curve, raise the CAFE score, and have a major point to advertise, and be able to sell to those who can't plug in easily, sell them on something that will get, for example, 35% better mileage, plug in when you get a chance, and drives like a Honda. Bring back some of the engineering skills that Honda once stood for. And then start introducing a portfolio of EVs once people are more comfortable with the idea of plugging in. People seeing that they can easily use an EV for their daily errands with the gas engine never starting will eventually sell them on a future EV because that range anxiety will be lessened. The all EV leap is still a bridge too far, especially as recent sales numbers have shown. Baby steps. That's how you win people over.
  • Theflyersfan If this saves (or delays) an expensive carbon brushing off of the valves down the road, I'll take a case. I understand that can be a very expensive bit of scheduled maintenance.
  • Zipper69 A Mini should have 2 doors and 4 cylinders and tires the size of dinner plates.All else is puffery.
  • Theflyersfan Just in time for the weekend!!! Usual suspects A: All EVs are evil golf carts, spewing nothing but virtue signaling about saving the earth, all the while hacking the limbs off of small kids in Africa, money losing pits of despair that no buyer would ever need and anyone that buys one is a raging moron with no brains and the automakers who make them want to go bankrupt.(Source: all of the comments on every EV article here posted over the years)Usual suspects B: All EVs are powered by unicorns and lollypops with no pollution, drive like dreams, all drivers don't mind stopping for hours on end, eating trays of fast food at every rest stop waiting for charges, save the world by using no gas and batteries are friendly to everyone, bugs included. Everyone should torch their ICE cars now and buy a Tesla or Bolt post haste.(Source: all of the comments on every EV article here posted over the years)Or those in the middle: Maybe one of these days, when the charging infrastructure is better, or there are more options that don't cost as much, one will be considered as part of a rational decision based on driving needs, purchasing costs environmental impact, total cost of ownership, and ease of charging.(Source: many on this site who don't jump on TTAC the split second an EV article appears and lives to trash everyone who is a fan of EVs.)
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