Thursday, September 21, 2017
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Faraday Future’s Nevada Factory Plans Officially Dead
It’s been just over two years since we first heard about Faraday Future. At the time, the electric car startup was pretty much operating in secret but had already poached several big names in the car industry. Less than six months later, FF announced plans to invest $1 billion in a Nevada factory. But financial issues quickly arose, and earlier this summer, FF stopped work on the Nevada plant. This week, FF finally threw in the towel.
The Nevada Independent reports that Faraday Future’s Nevada plant is officially dead. The startup sent a letter to the Governor’s Office of Economic Development giving up its status as a “qualified project.” That required FF to write the state a check for $16,200, as well as forfeit about $620,000 in tax incentives that had been held in a trust.
“The Faraday project is basically dissolved at this point at absolutely no cost to the state and local governments,” said Steve Hill, executive director of Nevada’s GOED.
Rendering of Faraday Future’s proposed factory in Hanford, California.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean FF is done for good. It’s been working to raise more money since May, and last month, it leased a smaller factory in California to hopefully begin production on its all-electric FF91 next year. Whether that will still happen, though, remains to be seen.
As it turns out, starting a car company from scratch is hard. And very expensive.
Source: The Nevada Independent
http://ift.tt/2xlj1TLGenesis Won’t Build an A3 or CLA Competitor
Genesis recently showed off its smallest sedan yet, the G70. Slotting in under the full-size G90 and midsize G80, Genesis’ newest car is aimed squarely at the Audi A4, BMW 3 Series, and Mercedes-Benz C-Class. But if you’re waiting for Genesis to go even smaller and take on the Audi A3 and Mercedes-Benz CLA, you’ll probably be disappointed.
Speaking to Australia’s CarAdvice, Manfred Fitzgerald, Genesis’ senior vice president, said that Genesis has no plans to fill out its range with a sedan smaller than the G70. “I don’t want to comment on the moves of the others. We have a pretty clear strategy planned out with what we want to do. Therefore the sedan lineup is pretty complete with the G90, G80, and G70,” he said.
Part of the reason for that is that Fitzgerald doesn’t think Genesis has the brand cachet to justify selling a smaller, cheaper car. “We have so much still to accomplish, and so many white spots still on the map, if you will, so there is enough room for us to play it in the conventional way,” said Fitzgerald.
At the moment, that means adding three luxury SUVs to the lineup by 2021. Considering how popular SUVs are these days, especially small and midsize crossovers, that move makes sense. But that doesn’t mean Genesis only has SUVs in the works.
“There’s so much room for us, as a new brand, to establish ourselves,” said Fitzgerald. “A GT is obviously something that, as a designer, you most want to do. It’s the most emotional car that you can actually design, so I would not rule that out, like many other vehicles out there as well.”
Does that mean the Vision G concept could still make it to production as some sort of revived Genesis Coupe? A Genesis spokesperson told us last year that such a car was in development. Its production chances might hinge on how well those three SUVs sell, however.
Source: CarAdvice
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