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Faraday Future Selects Las Vegas As Home For $1B Electric Car Factory (autoblog.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Faraday Future, the newest and most unknown player in the electric car game, has selected North Las Vegas as the home for their billion dollar factory. The 3 million square foot factory will be built on 900 acres and create 4,500 jobs. Faraday Future will release more information on their Tesla fighter, a 100% electric car, at CES in January. Autoblog reports: "Nevada topped finalists California, Georgia and Louisiana in the race to land the 2.5 million square foot plant. It's expected to sit on 600 acres in North Las Vegas's Apex Industrial Park and bring 4,500 jobs to Nevada. Mayor John Lee called the site choice 'a transformational opportunity' for his city of about 220,000 residents. North Las Vegas boomed as the nation's fastest-growing city in the early 2000s and nearly busted when the recession hit and pushed it close to insolvency."
900 acres will sit on 600 acres? Me thinks this company has invented more than just a new electric car design.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
They deserve to fail horribly just for having such a stupid name.
I'd have gone for Henry Horseless, or maybe Volt Vagons.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Yes build a factory, in a desert where there is no water. What are they thinking?
Yeah! Cars will never catch on. Get a horse, dummy!
"We plan to revolutionize the automobile industry by creating an integrated, intelligent mobility system that protects the earth and improves the living environment of mankind," wrote Jia Yueting (ZHAW' YOO'-weh-ting), who's the founder and CEO of the holding company LeTV.
California-based automaker Faraday Future's choice of Nevada over three other states is contingent on state lawmakers' approval of tax incentives that haven't been publicly described.
Already Tesla is striking its own trail, its superchargers not inter operating with nascent common charging interfaces of other companies. At least Tesla has declared it will not sue others copying its designs, so Tesla chargers might end up as the de-facto standards. Hope this new venture interoperates with the existing infrastructure and not be another walled garden.
I think the tipping point would be something like charging stations as ubiquitous as gas stations and one gets a 120 mile range in 20 minutes. Not as good as gas car for long distance, but good enough to tolerate it for the occasional long drives a few times a year.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Faraday Future will release more information on their Tesla fighter, 100% electric car at CES in January.
Why would you build a $1Billion factory or even plan one before you have a marketable product in an industry that is promising but barely exists? Who would finance that? I don't care how wealthy the backers (allegedly some mysterious Chinese guy named Jia Yueting) are, that make zero sense unless the backer has no expectation of a return on their investment. Something bigger and possibly fishy is going on here. I'd like to know who really is financing this because that would explain a lot about what their motivations might be.
Furthermore building manufacturing plants in the middle of the desert is nuts. Sure you can get some solar power but it just stretches already thin water resources even further. It's insanely bad public policy. The air conditioning bill alone will be astronomical.
Call me a party pooper or an underachiever, but I just dont think theres a market for a one billion dollar electric car.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Reasons for chosing Las Vegas:
1. Because Detroit turned them down.
2. Because they've got "a lucky feeling about this one"
3. They're spending a billion dollars on a new car factory before they've even got a prototype... they probably felt they would be legally required to build it somewhere that permits gambling.
4. Because if it all goes horribly wrong, they could just convert the whole place into a casino.
Faraday Future, the newest and most unknown player in the electric car game
It's unknown if there are more unknown unknowns, we don't know if those in the know know more about this unknown rather than other unknowns. Needless to say we will all know about the known unknowns as soon as there is more to know.
I hear there's a tech company with $200B in cash that's rumored to be building a car.
No it almost certainly is not Apple. Apple would have little reason to hide the fact that they were getting into building cars. Furthermore, Apple as a corporation has some.. ahem, control issues. I very much doubt that they would work through proxies like this - it's completely out of character for them. Furthermore there have been plenty of journalists asking if Apple is involved and the answer seems to be a pretty clear no.
They also said they would never make a tablet computer, too.
Oh, well that's a clearly compelling piece of evidence... Glad you cleared that up with such an airtight argument. [/sarcasm]
Seriously, could it be Apple? I suppose, but it doesn't really make a lot of sense. The argument for it is basically that A) Apple has a lot of money and B) there are rumors they are thinking of building cars and C) Apple is secretive. That's it. That's a pretty thin argument. There is, to my knowledge, no known link between the two companies. Zero. So saying it has to be Apple is the sort of leap a conspiracy theorist would come up with. If you've got something more than that, please share with the class. I won't be embarrassed to be wrong but I require a bit more evidence than vague conjectures.
Based on the what we know of this company and their product so far I would be willing to invest up to $0 in it. However, if I know my government, I have already invested thousands in it.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
But it's aliens. They're building this new facility over a giant under ground vault system filled with amazing alien technology.
Tax rates are a major reason companies are moving to Nevada and Texas from California and elsewhere.
The corporate income tax rate is 0%. Payroll taxes are 1.45% of the amount over $50,000, so lower-paid positions cost nothing in state payroll taxes.
Compare California, with a 8.85% corporate tax rate vs 0% in AZ. California payroll tax is something like 7.5% of the -first- $7000, plus 1.5% of everything else.
I actually also really discount the Apple Car idea, myself.
Sounds like we have the same thought. I have NO idea why Apple would want to get into the business of manufacturing automobiles. I work in that industry. The companies with the best margins (Toyota, Porsche, etc) clear around 10% net profit. Compare that with the 25%-30% Apple currently enjoys and it's hard to see how Apple could get into the market without incurring massive shareholder dissatisfaction. (read lawsuits galore) There is a reason there hasn't been a new major car company in decades.
Like you point out, cars are massively more complicated than the products Apple currently makes, have huge capital requirements, difficult legal issues, entrenched competitors, etc. Apple is a remarkable company but even they would have a hard time with this. Obviously they have the war chest to give it a go but I'm not sure people appreciate just how massively different building cars is from designing consumer electronics.
Putting a new car factory in the desert smacks of stupidity to me.
"and create 4,500 jobs."
yeah for about 2 years before it folds
And yet, Tesla's demand is higher than they can supply. If Faraday ends up making a decent EV, they will also have the Tesla problem.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Personally, I am excited about that. I have pushed to name some of our streets after ppl like this, rather than idiots like reagan or W.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Not really sure where you got $200B in cash.
5 Seconds on google would have answered your question. The only place you really need to look is their financial statements. Yes they really have that much. Much of it is parked overseas or in various investments.
For the record, Apple has more cash on hand than Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Facebook COMBINED.
Really? In what way is this more subsidized than oil, gas, and coal? There is a 7500 subsidy, but that has limits, unlike the massive subsidies on fossil fuels. And at this time, Tesla is on track to be extremely profitable. In fact, the cars themselves ARE profitable. It is the build-out of showrooms, giga-factory, and Superchargers, that cost them.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You can't do the 4-5 hour non-stop run you can do in a ICE car.
You can't? Funny, if I really wanted to I could go close to 500 miles in my car (2010 Hyundai). 14 gallon tank @ 38/mpg = 532 miles.
That's driving at a steady 70 mph the whole time.
I recently drove 3,500 miles round trip and while I could have gone longer in between fuel stops, I chose to fill up at around a half tank. In each case I was well over 200 miles and it only took me 5 minutes total to top off.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
There are very few companies in the world that do well with multiple products lines in the same space, and even fewer that do well with multiple product lines in radically different spaces. Apple has become wildly successful going after things they do well in the areas they know, generating repeat business and creating a lot of satisfied customers.
The biggest reason why I'm pretty sure it isn't Apple behind this weird venture in the desert is simple. Apple has ~$200 billion in cash. They could buy 100% of Ford, GM, FiatChrysler AND Honda and at their current market capitalization and still have several billion left over. They have ZERO reason to shadow finance some speculative startup in an industry they have no experience with. Would make far more sense to buy a company like GM outright and run it as an independent subsidiary.
Note I'm not saying they should buy those companies (they really shouldn't) but merely that they could.
Not a good idea. That's where that manhole cover is due to come back down.
Have gnu, will travel.
um... what do you think you were replying to? I'm confused, or was it just you?
GP said an ICE (internal combustion engine, you know, like the one in your 2010 Hyundai that gets 38mpg) can do it in a non-stop run. GP referred to a 300 mile trip. You say "a steady 70 mph" so that would be a little more than four hours -- amazingly right in the 4-5 hours that GP cited.
BTW: I'll raise your "532 miles non-stop" with a 1000+ mile two quick stops (5 minutes) for fuel. Over the thousand miles I averaged around 70 mph (including stops, construction, slow traffic). My range was only around 350 miles per tank, not your glorified 532 miles (btw: do you *really* get that far between refuelings, or do you find that in practice you can't actually run the tank dry).
Nevada doesn't have an *water* problem, they contribute more water to the Colorado river than they take out of it.
The mere existence of Las Vegas at it's current size IS a water problem. There is zero reason for a city that size to exist in the middle of the desert. The amount of water that has to be diverted to support Las Vegas is obscene.
Their problem is that California, which is totally overpopulated and drought stricken, desperately needs Nevada's water
The fact that California's farmers use more water does not excuse the existence of Las Vegas and it certainly isn't a justification for making the place larger than it already is. It is a ridiculous place to build a factory, no matter what tax incentives they offer.
Also, Las Vegas is powered by the Hoover dam.
No it is not. 95% of the power generated by the dam goes to other states.
The worst place you could put this factory is in one of the cold climate states, where the power would almost certainly come from coal.
Cold climate states have dams too and some generate far more power than the Hoover dam. Factories are generally cheaper to heat than to cool. I should know because I've run several of them in both hot and cold climates. Unless they build their own power plant (solar?) this plant will be powered by fossil fuels just like the rest of Vegas.
"Tesla", "Faraday"... Watt is going on with these company names? Next thing you know, they'll giving cars names like "Volt"!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Tektronix was on Millikan Way in Beaverton. Beats Apple's Infinite Loop address, I guess...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
But it's an electric car company, and electricity is really cheap there, because of hydro power from the raging Colorado river! Oh, wait...
I don't run my tank dry. At around half a tank I fill up though I do occasionally run it lower. I check my mileage each time and for a combination of city and local driving I can get between 30 -34 mpg (manufacturer says 29 in city driving).
On the highway, in steady traffic at 70 mph I can get at or very close to 40 mpg which is what the manufacturer says I should get.
I used 38 mpg for my 3,500 mile trip because I had extra weight and I was doing 75 at times when in Kansas which cut down on my mileage.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
How would it go if electric cars had been first, and then gas came along? "The gasoline tank is just behind the passenger seat. You should be aware that gasoline can burn fiercely or explode. Don't worry, this only happens in some accidents, usually. To fill your tank you will need to go to one of the growing number of filling stations in your area. Stations are being built as quickly as possible, but the tricky nature of gasoline storage makes them very expensive, so please be patient. There is no provision for filling at home, as keeping any supply of gasoline at a residence, outside the car's tank, is extremely dangerous. When filling the tank, please note that gasoline vapors are toxic, carcinogenic, and highly explosive. However we have determined that it is perfectly safe for people to fill their own tanks, despite being completely untrained. For example, the filling nozzles are carefully designed to minimize the possibly of creating a spark." And lots more.
A hybrid getting 50mpg with a 12 gallon tank has a 600 mile range. My 2003 Civic hybrid routinely gets around 500 miles between fill ups, especially if it's mostly freeway. Your mileage may vary. (Sadly, the Civic that got just under 50mpg freeway new now only gets about 45mpg freeway.)
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
How would it go if electric cars had been first, and then gas came along?
Electric cars actually preceded gasoline cars. Limited range is what doomed them, back in the day when electric, gasoline, steam, and diesel were all competing.
I don't read AC A human right
Americans pay bugger-all in taxes. But if they could turn all the whining & bellyaching they do about it into heat & electricity, they could power the planet.
Tesla v2.0
Current Apple competitors do not have the same profit margins as Apple either.
Incorrect. Both Google and Microsoft both have net profit margins comparable to Apple. Go look at their financials. They are all between 20-30% net margins depending on the time period examined and those sorts of margins are nothing unusual for software companies. (Yes Apple is really a software company) Those sorts of margins are unheard of for manufacturing companies. Apple will not change this equation.
Today's cars are becoming computer driven, it is Apple field again.
Not all software is the same. The difference between the software in a car and the software in a PC is huge. Apple's facility with consumer electronics should not be assumed to translate well to automobiles. While there is plenty of electronics in a modern car, there is far more to a car that has nothing to do with electronics. Designing and tuning a suspension or building a structural frame or a seat are not software and never will be.
You just don't know how successful they will be or not and what they will show. Probably iCar v1 will not be huge success, but once the hype will be driven up, iCar v2 or v3 should attract masses of iFans willing to pay 20% or 30% more for extra bells an whistles that "only Apple has".
Here's what you don't understand. We're talking about the largest purchase people make outside of their house. The economics are completely different both on cost and . Apple quite simply cannot price these products that high and still sell enough of them to recover their costs. They cannot outsource the production like they currently do because it costs too much and there are too many quality problems. They CANNOT make 25%+ margins on cars because of the cost structure. Apple's brand will not change that equation. Apple has been successful because they've been focused on what they are good at which is software and industrial design for consumer electronics. If they want to swim off into the deep waters that is the auto industry, I wish them well, but you are deluded if you think they can maintain their margins in that industry.