Introduction
In the year after LeTV’s delisting, Faraday Future (FF) successfully went public on the other side of the ocean. This has become the focus of almost all media attention in recent days. “Jia Boss” has returned to the spotlight, bringing back global attention to this “Internet celebrity” who gradually faded away from our sight. Jia Yueting’s LeTV had shining moments in China, but also fell deeply into the abyss. Even in the most difficult times, Jia Yueting was unwilling to give up control of FF. Now that FF has successfully gone public and the FF91 is about to go into mass production, whether Jia Yueting can stage a comeback and bring about a turning point in his life has become a topic of great interest.
Signs of FF’s Going Public Have Already Emerged
In fact, there have been many signs of improvement for FF since the end of last year. Among them, not only did Geely invest in FF, but Geely-Foxconn’s joint venture also started manufacturing the FF91 in China. There were also rumors that the Zhuhai Municipal Government was deeply involved in investing in FF and seeking to have the FF91 produced in a factory in Zhuhai. After Jia Yueting stepped down as CEO and focused on his position as product manager, and FF introduced Bie Teng’s founder, Bi Fukang, who was also a veteran of BMW, FF began to show signs of entering a virtuous cycle.
Simply looking at the FF91 as a model, if many of its design indicators can be achieved, it still has strong competitiveness even today. These include: a long range of 608 km under more stringent EPA conditions, and 0-100 km acceleration in just 2.4 seconds, which is comparable to that of a supercar. Such models with such performance in the electric car market are rare, if not non-existent. As for other features, just looking at them, the FF91 is not falling behind either. It must be noted that this model was already unveiled back in 2017/2018. If it had been put into production at that time, it would have certainly been Model S’s strongest competitor. But in this world, there are no ifs. FF has already missed an excellent development opportunity. Looking around today, the whole market has already become a red ocean. In order to stand firm in this market, whether it is the FF91 or FF as a company, the challenges are self-evident.
Can the mass production of FF91 be Jia Yueting’s ticket to a comeback?However, even if FF91 can be mass-produced successfully in 12 months, for FF or Jia Yueting himself, it is just the first step of the long march. Being successfully listed on Nasdaq is the best return or affirmation for Jia Yueting’s persistence in the past, but for a car company, achieving self-sustaining development is the key to sustainable development. However, from the current situation of FF, it is still far away from achieving self-sustaining development. Not to mention, in the past two or three years, FF has not invested enough resources in the development of new models and forward-looking technologies. During this period, many companies, including FF’s biggest competitor – Tesla, have made significant breakthroughs in underlying core technologies. They optimized their systems by collecting a large amount of data, leaving FF far behind.
Putting aside the fact that FF91 is expensive and not a popular model. Even if FF81 is launched later, given Jia Yueting’s current personal reputation, how many consumers will choose FF’s products is a big question mark. In FF’s listing ceremony, Jia Yueting locked FF’s competitors on ultra-luxury brands such as Bentley, Maybach and Ferrari. Although these ultra-luxury brands have strong brand appeal, their accumulation in the three-electric system and intelligent network technology is not sufficient. Therefore, compared with these brands, FF does have an advantage in the three-electric system. But not to mention comparing with the new and old forces and technology giants such as Tesla, Google, Volkswagen and Baidu, even compared with the rising stars such as Nio, XPeng and Ideal, FF is not certain to win.
Currently, the automotive industry has entered an era of fighting fiercely, and no car company or technology giant participating in it has any certainty of winning. From the financing of this listing, FF only received 1 billion US dollars in funds, which is barely enough to support the mass production of FF91, let alone the development of FF81 models and other underlying core technologies related to intelligent network connection.
Capital market is actually a place of competition. For the US market, Tesla in 2020 left too much room for imagination for too many people. Electric car companies in the market have become scarce resources, and FF has been publicly promoting that it owns a large number of patents, including the three-electric system, which has become its biggest selling point when the company goes public.
But at the same time, the capital market is also a ruthless place. Once FF91 fails to achieve the performance expected by investors in the future, the market will inevitably mercilessly abandon it. Time is running out for Jia Yueting!
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.