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Electric-Car Startup Faraday Future Building a $1 Billion Factory In California (businessinsider.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Faraday Future, an electric car startup based in California, wants to take on Tesla. They're building a $1 billion factory in California. Business Insider reports: "The startup of about 400 employees has poached executive talent from Tesla and also draws its name from a luminary scientist — Michael Faraday — who helped harness for humanity the forces of nature. Even Faraday's public announcement that California, Georgia, Louisiana and Nevada are finalists for the factory mirrors the approach Tesla took to build a massive battery factory. Nevada won that bidding war among several states last year by offering up to $1.3 billion in tax breaks and other incentives. Faraday hopes to distinguish itself by branding the car less as transportation than a tool for the connected class."
Is it April Fools' Day?
article: Four states are contenders and the company says to expect an announcement within weeks.
There are some that posit that Faraday is a thinly disguised front for Apple....
Funders: Undisclosed.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Faraday hopes to distinguish itself by branding the car less as transportation than a tool for the connected class.
So, luxury-class like Tesla, only with more pretentiousness?
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
They aren't proposing to build in just A California, but THE California!
Faraday hopes to distinguish itself by branding the car less as transportation than a tool for the connected class.
Who the fuck cares about the marketing bullshit they put in their ads?
Branding the car "less as transportation"? What the fuck? People view cars first and foremost as transportation.
This is marketing idiocy in its purest form.
Only the red politicians are in the pocket of Big Oil. The blue ones are shooting down pipelines and incentivising projects like this.
Ross Perot's "Great Sucking Sound" in reverse is starting to show up everywhere as the trillions we printed and sent out the trade deficit to China and elsewhere over the last 20 years is now boomeranging back into any possible hard asset class that isn't nailed down. Same goes for bay area real estate. Hopefully the money won't be excessively dumb.
The first gasoline cars were reserved for rich people too. Their range was limited and there was poor infrastructure to support them. Over time that changed. Apple is very good at commoditizing quality products; don't count them out until we've seen what they built. Oil will run out or become prohibitively expensive to extract. I, for one, am glad that someone is working on the problem.
All of them are in the pockets of big oil, democrats just lie and pretend that they're not. Are you naive enough to think that the largest companies on earth don't hedge their bets? Trust me, they donate to both parties.
Should I be worried since my tax dollars have been subsidizing Tesla's loss of almost 300 million dollars last year?
They sell it as an "experience" (a totally empty meaningless word) because they can't sell it on measurable quantaties (specs, price, value).
Marketing wins and the consumer loses.
They sell it as an experience because this phrasing appeals to the buyers' emotions.
See Simon Sinek's "Start With Why" TED talk for a good overview of how and why this works.
A copier salesman can't just say "this unit will make x copies per second", he has to say "this unit will save you money". Martin Luthor King didn't say "I have a plan", he said "I have a dream". And so on.
It's circumstantial evidence of Apple - they sell products at an emotional level.
1.) What is the "connected class"? It sounds very elitist, like 1per centers.
You know, those people who like use the intertoobz, have smartphones and computers. Most of us probably.
2.) Electric vehicles will always be limited by their battery capacity. Nikola Tesla had shown, back in the Thirties, that resonance coupling can eliminate batteries all together.
So tell me, exactly which vehicles have unlimited range? If we had the infrastructure in place for electric vehicles now, would you say that someone wanting to start up with diesel or gasoline powered vehicles were always going to be "limited range/"
3.) Competing against the fossil fuel industry will go nowhere since the politicians are in the pockets of Big Oil.
Coal is having some issues at the moment, and they have/had a seriously powerful lobby. Remember, time does not stand still, and what seems to you a fact that will last forever, is changing .
As more and more players enter the EV market, it is simply getting harder to hang onto the old paradigms as to why they are an utter failure.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
1. More likely 'young people'. IE, those that live and die by the internet today.
2. Tesla wank pisses me off some. We're working on resonance coupling, but we only have it efficient(like you'd need it to be for powering an EV), at less than a foot. So we can efficiently charge/power a low-slung EV, but not a high-slung one. Tesla had some good ideas and products, but he eventually went off the deep end. Heck, even Einstein eventually got stuck on his universal theory, and he was mostly a pure theory guy(though he did hold some patents in some very interesting refrigeration techniques).
3. Look at the amount of assistance solar, wind, and EVs get. Politicians aren't 100% in big oil's pockets.
3b. Indeed, but they said they nabbed some executives. They didn't say they managed to get engineers/researchers/developers. The executives are likely easier to replace.
I don't read AC A human right
When I think 'connected class' I think Facebook...... and then I go have a shower.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
All of them are in the pockets of big oil, democrats just lie and pretend that they're not.
They're doing a great job of pretending, they've got everyone fooled but you!
Gasoline vehicles effectively do, owing to a sufficiently large infrastructure of gas stations, and a sufficiently low refill time that it does not significantly impact the duration of a trip that is long enough that requiring such range would matter.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Gas cars seem like they really are doomed to going the way of the horse and buggy. Ultimately we're going to have to have a bunch of different electric car manufacturers otherwise Tesla would be a monopoly, and despite the geek's adoration for Elon Musk's dick, a monopoly is generally a bad thing, even if it's headed by a saint (which Musk is not).
The big car manufacturers are already hilariously slow moving and behind the curve, and are basically following Tesla's technology and lead. It seems pretty obvious to me that they aren't going to exist in the future except in severely shrunken form. So we urgently need new electric car manufacturers before it's Tesla that's the big clunky traditionalist car manufacturer.
In other words, this is a good thing and everyone should be happy about it. Except maybe Musk.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
Smells like Fail.
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
What is the 'connected class', pretty damn obvious, nothing but an empty marketing spiel, pretty much the norm for modern marketing. The really interesting thing is the rapidly growing battle ground for the electric car market place.
What is hidden in all this, is why current infernal combustion manufacturers are so slow to change. The problem for them is the massive capital investment in infernal combustion production lines and facilities and cars designed around the infernal combustion engine. Swapping to electrics means wiping that production line capital value straight off the books whilst still saddled (snicker) with the debt and then having to borrow more for electric car production.
Psychopathic executives will be looking for means by which to make the switch to electric whilst dumping the losses on someone else, preferable the gullible masses pension funds (there is a lot of write offs to occur hence the big grab for US social security funds, so those funds can be used to buy a whole bunch investments destined to fail).
So existing infernal combustion manufacturers, start off new electric car companies, with ownership buried under layers because of the negative impact on the perceived capital value of the infernal combustion assets. Then they shift debts to the infernal combustion assets and capital assets to the electric car company, this done via debt mechanisms and then they sell the destined to implode infernal combustion assets. Bankruptcy sets in and they then buy back any remaining assets including branding at a huge discount, leaving a trail of debt and golden parachutes behind.
Currently it makes much more financial sense to start off a new electric car company than it does for an existing infernal combustion engine manufacturer to write off those assets and basically borrow all that money to turn themselves into an electric car manufacturer.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Tesla'is main auto factory is in Fremont, CA.
Gasoline vehicles effectively do, owing to a sufficiently large infrastructure of gas stations, and a sufficiently low refill time that it does not significantly impact the duration of a trip that is long enough that requiring such range would matter.
And if an infrastructure for electric vehicles nationwide existed? And batteries, are thare never going to be any improvements? Seems to be happening pretty regularly these days.
But more to my point, there are places in the american west that you better plan your trip around some available fuel stations. That "Last Chance Gas" station meme is real.
Even in relatively highly populated Pennsylvania you can find yourself in trouble. One of my favorite fall rides along Route 555 to 120 runs through mountain valleys, and at 150 miles pre tank on my bike, I have ot be certain to stop in little Renovo PA to get gas, or be out of luck. A few years ago, I pull into the 1 gas station there, and it had went out of business. I about shit myself, fortunately, there was a garage that opened to allow people in town to get gas. Otherwise, I'd have to call my better half to bring gasoline for me from a few hundred miles away. They've got a couple stations now, so life is better on that drive. Takeawy is that no fueling system is unlimited.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Executives do the most generic job in the fucking galaxy. You can take any executive and drop it into any company's executive position and he/she wll perform identically badly.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I'm waiting for Einstein Electric, who'll have the slogan "Spooky autos at a distance." Unfortunately I expect them to be entangled with regulators for a relatively long period of time.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
'Big Oil' is in the pocket of the people, who demand low fuel costs.
The weird notion that that fat capitalist on the Monopoly 'Chance' cards is out there, working for Filthy Oil is a little ridiculous.
If a sufficient infrastructure for electric cars existed, as well as a brief enough recharge time that does not significantly impact the the overall duration of an otherwise unpaused trip, sure...
Of course, but you still only need to stop at such a last chance station for 5 minutes and you are good to go for another 6 to 7 hours of nonstop driving if you so choose.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
No fueling system is unlimited, but for people who need extremely long range with a gasoline vehicle, it's affordable to add an auxillary tank. I could put one in the bed of my truck that would give me a thousand mile range.
Nobody can add the batteries to an electric vehicle for that range and have a vehicle that won't twist the wheels off it's axles when they put it in gear.
Faraday is linked to a chinese multibillionaire http://lasvegassun.com/news/2015/sep/14/legal-documents-link-faraday-future-chinese-/. One doesn't become a billionaire in China without being close or partially owned by the Chinese government and or Chinese military. Case in point are the 3 Chinese hospitality companies thinking about bidding for Starwood (Westin etc.). They are all owned in part by the Chinese government. My guess is that Faraday is no different.
No fueling system is unlimited, but for people who need extremely long range with a gasoline vehicle, it's affordable to add an auxillary tank. I could put one in the bed of my truck that would give me a thousand mile range.
Nobody can add the batteries to an electric vehicle for that range and have a vehicle that won't twist the wheels off it's axles when they put it in gear.
I have 4 vehicles now, because not one meets all my needs. I have my little Jeep to go offeroad. I have a higher end Jeep for the missus and trips. I have a motorcycle, and I have an RV for camping. And if Jeep ever comes out with an EV, I'm buying one. Trade in one of the others, depending on the specific type of EV they make.
Then if I have to drive from Alaska to Mexico, or portland Maine to San Diego, I'll probably take one of the gas vehicles. For now anyhow.
But since I only take a couple thousand mile plus trips year- if that, the EV vould get the overwhelming majority of the driving.
My point in all this is that relying on old paradigms like EV's will never have the range, EV's will always need long periods of charging is like saying computers will never get faster, or have higher performance. If you don't want an EV, don't buy one. But the utter failure model is getting harder and harder to support.
And it's odd. I love technology. And this is tremendous technology developing before our eyes. But it seems that Slashdot is as up in arms about it as John Broder. It's almost like slashdot has become an cadre of the old shits sitting at the bar, bitching about the good old days before they took lead out of gasoline.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but... you know all those little Apple decals people put on their cars? That's so we can identify each-other at a distance, so we can light off quietly leaving all you unenlightened sots and go off into the woods and have wild, naked, Apple-love-fueled fantastic sex-orgies, that you "Windows" and "Android" losers will never be able to attend or understand. Even if you try to sneak into the pantheon that is Apple, you will never see these wonders until you accept Apple into your heart as your technological savior, and bow down before Steve Jobs, all praise his Holy Jobsness, Blessings and Peace be upon Him, and his Apostle, Tim Cook, Magnified is his Name, and are deemed worthy. The parties are amazing, the sex, unimaginably satisfying and mind-blowing, and the cake and wine we have after is fat-free.
You win.
1) they probably don't understand it themselves but that just means having a web connected device in your pocket. tadaa you're connected! basically that excludes just few people in china and africa nowadays.
2) yeah yeah shown to who..
3) you can still use oil to make cheap electricity.
4) tesla started such competition anyways. tesla is unlikely to co-operate with anyone.
but that they're calling it a tool means it will be more for commuting etc, 2cv style.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
There's much more than just inflation to worry about. There is foreign exchange rates, official cash rates, gold prices, commodity prices, the revenue and profitability of various companies, their market share and opportunities for growth within their market, their need to reinvest their capital etc. The interest by itself is usually around inflation but then there is the tax, which I don't mind paying if it actually helped people but it doesn't it goes into schemes which pay great dividends for those still richer than me.
But dividends here is the key: you need to reinvest them, and also seek them as part of a sound portfolio. The capital gains alone are too volatile and only the banks can take advantage of them until you have a sizeable portfolio where each option you're trading involves thousands of dollars and the trading fees are irrelevant.
Again the key is to find unleveraged companies - those in debt will fail during downturns and consistently perform poorer, they also need to put more of their possible dividend yields paying off the larger corporate banking investors before they pay you. If they fail, you're well further down the list as a creditor too.
And until I am legally considered a sovereign individual bound to none, free to do as I please on my own land, then no, I'll keep working and saving. You should too or the billionaires get richer and richer.
Oh and I have no children (yet) so if I die childless, hopefully my estate can do something good, like feeding, housing and providing education to those less fortunate than me, can't use it once I die unless I build a huge golden statue of myself (1 tonne would be nice but any more than that is absurd, like I said you don't need more than $50 million)
I do not believe the system itself is evil. It's not ideal and joblessness short of mental health and disability are signs of that. Homelessness is a sign of that. The lack of compassion we show strangers is probably instinctual and it is hard to combat, but even those of us who believe in evolution must realise we were once all one tribe. Every human is my cousin, ever so distantly and I care for them to some extent just as I do my family.
At the hands of a system which has been proven to benefit psychopathic ladder climbers however, it is people such as myself, and you the reader of this comment which must do more to live debt free, work hard and make sure the fruits of our labor are put to good use, rather than filtered through to the wallets of billionaires. (unless those billionaire in kind pledge to do more for the people.)
It's not that I don't believe that they don't deserve rewards of their successes, those who have actually earned it, it's that the market has not correctly adjusted the prices of their products. Most complain about government regulation, and to a large part it assists to help them maintain monopolies and seek out favourable opportunities before the common person can. Debt in itself is not evil, and people should even have the choice to leverage and bond their lives, though slavery is illegal, except it appears when it is financial. Debt is incredibly stupid however.
The citizen does not have reasonable power and voice, nor even the information and encouragement to think critically about debt, both in personal and civic forms. Instead the marketing machine dominates. News broadcasts encouraging you to spend more to stimulate the economy. What is the economy but a measurement of output, output which is fuelled by waste, which is the very opposite thing to accumulating wealth.
For the common person to become wealthy they almost have to think about everything in exactly the opposite way they are taught to think.
Money is not everything though, and a life well lived is the best life, but a life well lived is not necessarily the same as a life well _spent_. Save your life ;)
The age of machines is coming. When there is no work left to do some of the most challenging ethical questions will raise their ugly heads. Many believe we are already overpopulated and a great deal more unity will be required if we are ever to reach the stars. Least we destroy ourselves first.
"So tell me, exactly which vehicles have unlimited range?"
Sailboat
Sounds like a cage fight to me...
There's already an established company called Faraday selling electric vehicles:
https://www.faradaybikes.com/
Frankly, I'm not excited about driving in a Faraday cage, my cell phone already has enough troubles getting a signal as is.
What is the 'connected class'
With more than ten gigabytes in the negative this month for my Verizon plan, it sure as fuck isn't me...
"...less as transportation than a tool for the connected class."
The idea of which immediately makes it far less interesting than Tesla. Besides... what's the "connected class"? The majority of the population now, wouldn't that be?
If not Apple, this does smell like a similar mindset. The one thing that Apple has done right in the past is pretty much what Tesla (and Fisker, less successfully) already did with autos—maintain some purity of design in the face of compromising forces. So there's not a new niche here to exploit.
Bankruptcy sets in and they then buy back any remaining assets including branding at a huge discount, leaving a trail of debt and golden parachutes behind.
Like VAG?
You realize Tesla is sold out of all future production, there is a waiting list for the Model S and the X and one is expected for the 3 as well in 2 years.
And why do you think that? All the electric cars running and being built today are suddenly going to stop working a little under 5 years? Wow, you should go tell Volkswagen! And Chevrolet! And BMW! And Nissan! And Tesla! And Mercedes! And Ford! And Toyota! And Daimler! And Fiat! And Kia! And Honda! And Mitsubishi! And Volvo! And Porsche! And Volvo! And 9 other new car companies that you haven't even heard of. I'm sure I missed a few big ones too.
Yep - you sure know your stuff about electric cars!
That doesn't ring true at all.
No CEO is going to be able to name an electrical scientist other than Edison.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Every article I have seen on this subject indicates "taking on Tesla" ... who Faraday is really taking on, along with Tesla, is Toyota, GM, Chrysler, Honda, BMW & Audi etc.. The market to replace gasoline cars is much bigger than the market to poach a few sales from Tesla.
But where would they get batteries from to compete? Tesla?
Interesting, and plausible.
Queue the corporate welfare, when the parent internal-combustion car company fails.
Why not develop a great technology and license it to the real auto manufacturers like Honda and Toyota and GM and Ford? All of them want to get into the EV business but their tech isn't as good, .
What great technology is there to license? All those automakers already work with suppliers selling batteries, motors, inverters, etc. and have all sold compliance EVs in small numbers with those parts. A new licensor or part supplier would have to be dramatically better to get in the door. "Better" here means way cheaper, and cheap requires volume and the manufacturers apart from GM are refusing to commit to high-volume EV sales. So you'd have to convince a number of manufacturers that your widget is the future and hope their combined orders of 10,000 gets you to volume discount production. GM did invest in Sakti and a failed battery startup, it seems nobody has been that much better at the other parts then existing suppliers. And Magna International developed the whole drivetrain for the Food Focus EV, and the result is Ford is even less interested in selling a Not-Invented-Here design.
I would love the existing big manufacturers to realize they're missing out on a revolution in transportation and be desperately investing in any idea that keeps them relevant in the electric auto business. They aren't.
=S
"branding the car less as transportation than a tool for the connected class"
Is it only me, but did the marketing boffins make a bad choice of words for an electric car whose main concerns seem to be around the range...
So by "Connected Class" do they mean the people that have to have their car constantly plugged in? LOL! :p
Or is it that you have to be part of the mafia or something?
Plenty of companies that are doing EVs.
Instead, these new companies should focus on moving commercial vehicles to EVs, or even nat gas series hybrid.
Right now, few commercial vehicles get more than 10 MPG. So, if a company comes along that creates a nat gas series hybrid cheaper to OWN and run than current vehicles, they will OWN the market.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.