Embattled electric-vehicle startup Faraday Future looks to finally have the funds needed to get its FF91 battery-electric crossover into production thanks to the current wave of electric-vehicle startups going public via reverse mergers.
A reverse merger is where a private company is able to go public by being taken over by a company that’s already publicly listed, typically a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that is set up solely for this purpose.
In the case of Faraday Future, it reached a deal in January with SPAC company Property Solutions Acquisition Corp., and on Thursday the deal was closed with the listing of the merged company, known as Faraday Future Intelligent Electric Inc., on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “FFIE.” Faraday Future is expected to receive $1 billion out of the deal.
With the new funds, Faraday Future is confident it will be able to launch the FF91 on the market in 2022. Part of the funds will also be used to develop self-driving technology, one of three core tenets of the brand. The other two are Internet-based services and artificial intelligence.
Faraday Future has previously stated that it has more than 14,000 reservations for the FF91. The vehicle, which packs 1,050 hp and could cost as much as $180,000, will be built at a plant in Hanford, California, but Faraday Future may also tap a contract manufacturer located in South Korea. The company has also said it is investigating production in China, possibly in a deal witih minority shareholder Geely.
In addition to the FF91, Faraday Future said it is also developing more affordable models to be called the FF81 and FF71. They are targeted for release in 2023 and 2024, respectively. A teaser of the FF81 was shown in 2018. The company is also looking to launch a delivery vehicle around 2023.
Faraday Future plant in Hanford, California
Faraday Future’s first showroom is already open in New York City.
Faraday Future looked promising in 2017 when it unveiled the FF91 crossover but hit a snag shortly after main Chinese backer, Jia Yueting, ran into financial troubles of his own. The company had to cut costs and stop construction of a plant in Nevada, and Jia was eventually replaced as CEO by Carsten Breitfeld, the former CEO of rival EV startup Byton.
A string of EV startups have all gone public in the past year in this fashion. The list includes Canoo, Nikola, Lordstown Motors, and Fisker. Additional EV startups, Mullen Technologies and Lucid also plan to go public via reverse mergers.
