When a new automaker launches with a single model that costs over $250,000 and manages to sell fewer than 100 of them, common sense would suggest that the company gets relegated to the growing pile of failed attempts at launching a new car brand. That’s the history to date of Faraday Future, but this plucky startup refuses to take its place on the pile. Rather, it’s taken a step back and prepared for another run at it, this time with a larger lineup of more affordable electric vehicles.
FF recently held its annual Stockholders’ Day, where it showed investors the company’s product plans for the coming years. The event also included rides in “prototype mules” for its three new models, which include the FX Super One minivan, FX 4 SUV, and FX 6. The company also showed a teaser image of the FX 4 at its Stockholders’ Day that partially reveals this important SUV’s front end.
More About The FX 4 And FX Super One
The Super One minivan is on track to be the first of the company’s three new models to arrive, debuting at a closed event on June 29 and then publicly during another event on July 17. FF will then reveal the product plan for the FX4, which it calls “the disruptor of RAV4 in the AIEV era,” before the end of Q3 2025, at which time it will likely also debut the vehicle itself.
For the FX Super One, the company is hoping commercial fleets will be its main customers. It claims it already has 600 binding pre-orders and 2,500 non-binding preorders. That includes its latest deal with New PBB Auto Inc., a company that offers new and used car sales, after-sales maintenance, and auto loans in the Los Angeles area. It has paid FF a $60,000 non-refundable deposit that will buy one or more FX vehicles and secure priority delivery of up to 180 vehicles. The FX Super One is scheduled to begin production by the end of this year.
The FX 4, meanwhile, appears to be Faraday’s silver bullet model, the one that has the best chance of being a bona fide hit with regular consumers. It’s not a coincidence that the company references the Toyota RAV4 when describing it; the FX 4 is meant to be its most mainstream model with the widest appeal.
The FX 4 and FX 6 are said to be priced from $20,000 to $50,000. It sounds like wishful thinking to claim a company that currently sells a car for $250,000 can produce one that sells for $20,000, but Faraday says its R&D department is hard at work figuring out how to transfer all that high-tech from into its lower-priced FX models.
TopSpeed’s Take
We don’t know what to make of Faraday Future. It deserves credit for still existing after circling the drain for so long. It also deserves credit for bringing the $250,000 FF 91 to market and still being around to service the few it’s sold. And it’s hard to blame the company for its strategy of selling a high-end EV first. Tesla did it. Rivian did it. Lucid did it. Of course, none of its first EVs cost quite as much as the FF 91, but going high-end has proven to be a model that works.
And yet, here we are, being asked to believe this same company will produce an entirely new lineup of three vehicles that will sell for a fraction of the price of that first high-end model. It strains credibility and common sense to have faith that Faraday Future can pull this off, and yet, from its recent Stockholders’ Day to its latest teaser of the FX 4 to news of binding preorders with real money behind them, it seems the automaker is doing all the things an automaker does when it intends to stay solvent for the long haul. Good luck to you, Faraday Future. We’ll be watching.
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