Faraday postpones FF 91 production kickoff once again

The Californian electric car start-up Faraday Future has still not been able to raise the necessary capital to start production of its debut model FF 91, which was already postponed in July, this year.

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According to Reuters, the company, whose share value has plunged 94 per cent this year, even has “significant doubts” about being able to continue operations at all. Deliveries were still scheduled to start this year, even after the previous postponements. With production still not running at the end of November due to the lack of funds, it becomes less likely with each passing day that FF will be able to meet this deadline.

In Faraday Future’s recently published official report on the latest business figures, this sounds less dramatic: they are currently developing “revised budgets and production plans” and hope to be able to “announce the date for delivery of the FF 91 to customers shortly after funding has been secured”.

According to the annual report, the number of pre-orders for the FF 91 was just 369 on 17 November – another 30 less than at the end of June. At least Faraday Future’s net loss narrowed to $103.4 million in the third quarter of 2022, down from $303.9 million in the year-ago quarter. However, cash and cash equivalents were only $31.76 million at the end of Q3 2022.

Faraday Future is not only struggling with the already huge challenges of a production ramp-up, but also with internal squabbles (in the meantime, an investor had sued the company to get two senior managers dismissed) and, of course, rising raw material costs and volatile supply chains. It is precisely the higher costs and at the same time dwindling liquidity reserves that have led investors to question the start-up’s balance sheets – which in turn is unlikely to make it any easier to raise new funds for the start of production.

However, FF CEO Carsten Breitfeld refers to the third quarter as “a turning point for our company” in the annual report announcement. The former Byton boss is referring, for example, to the completion of construction work at the “ieFactory California” in Handford, but also to the financial situation. “We have completed important funding agreements and are optimistic that we can put in place the additional funding we need to launch the FF 91,” Breitfeld said. “We also saw strong progress with FF 91 testing and validation programs, where key performance metrics of our FF 91 including vehicle range (EPA rating), acceleration, and braking are even better than we promised.”

Update 18 December 2022

The Californian electric car start-up Faraday Future is now holding out the prospect of starting production of its debut model FF 91 at the end of March 2023 – provided additional capital can be generated for this purpose. It had already become apparent that Faraday would not succeed in realising the production start, which had been postponed several times, this year as planned. Most recently, Faraday Future had removed Carsten Breitfeld as CEO of the company.

According to a new announcement, production of the FF 91 is now scheduled to start at the end of March 2023. The first deliveries could then take place in April 2023. The prerequisites for this, however, are the “timely availability of additional funds in the amount of 150 to 170 million US dollars and the timely approval of the shareholders”. Discussions are underway with potential new investors and existing investors to provide the necessary capital, but no assurances can be given that these discussions will “lead to binding commitments in a timely manner or at all”.

reuters.com, ff.com (Q3 announcement), ff.com (update)