Faraday Future is scaling back some of its ambitions, according to Reuters, taking its planed product portfolio from seven electric vehicles to just two, and also reducing the size of its planned assembly factory in Nevada. The factory size reduction was confirmed by a North Las Vegas city manager, and will see the facility occupy less than a third of its original planned footprint.
The report says that Faraday still intends to create a larger facility, but that it will do so later instead of initially, and it has no specific timetable to share in terms of achieving the expansion. The company said it would be building its first assembly facility in Nevada, targeting a yearly output of 150,000 vehicles, back in 2015, and it committed to an investment of over $1 billion in the facility – a commitment which the company told Reuters it still intends to honor. The changed plans will see a capacity of only 10,000 cars per year, at the facility which will open in 2019 instead.
Interestingly, the report also gave us a closer look at what Faraday might be planning beyond its FF 91, the vehicle it unveiled at CES which aims at the high-end luxury segment, and sounds like it could have a price tag of almost $300,000 when it’s released. Reuters says an “FF 81” is planned, too, and is the other vehicle that survived the rethinking of its planned product pipeline. This would be a more affordable crossover vehicle, which would compete directly with the Model X, according to the report.
Faraday faces issues include work stoppages on the facility and a lawsuit from a graphics company due to non-payment of contractors, so it’s understandable to see it scale back its plans. The company’s future is still very much in doubt, but perhaps some of these setbacks will have it avoid making over-bold and splashy statements about its glorious future, which increasingly seem hard to back up.