US-based electric car manufacturer Faraday Future will attend the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2017) in Las Vegas, Nevada this week, where the company is expected to unveil its first electric vehicle later today on January 3rd. Interestingly enough, the car about to be showcased at the event is said to be a production model as opposed to a concept design, and fresh reports now suggest that Faraday Future’s electric car will have a price tag of somewhere between $150,000 and $200,000.
Faraday Future was established in the year 2014 as a US-based start-up company aiming at developing smart electric vehicles. Earlier this year, Chinese company LeEco – who has shown great interest in the electric vehicle market – has invested $140 million in Faraday Future, and since then the aforementioned carmaker has been viewed as LeEco’s automotive arm. In any case, Faraday Future’s first production vehicle is expected to be unveiled at CES 2017 and the event has already been teased by LeEco CEO, Jia Yueting, in a series of press renders (below) released in the wild late last year. Interestingly enough, however, reports now suggest that unlike in previous instances where Faraday Future showcased its electric vehicle, the model set for an unveiling at CES will not be a concept, but instead it will be a production version ready to hit the market in the year 2018. In addition, although pricing details surrounding Faraday Future’s electric car have been scarce, new reports now suggest that the car will likely be priced around $150,000 – $200,000. It does seem like an excessively high price tag but judging by what is known so far, Faraday Future is likely to adopt a strategy similar to Tesla, in that it will launch its first electric vehicle model at a higher price, proving that the concept can be put into practice while raising funds for a second, more affordable model. In fact, rumors suggest that Faraday Future is already planning the release of a mid-range electric car in the year 2020, codenamed “Project 81”.
Then again, it’s interesting to note that Faraday Future’s car is said to accommodate 92-kWh worth of batteries (presumably supplied by LG Chem), which will give the vehicle a range of up to 300 miles (482 kilometers). Technically speaking this means that Faraday Future’s car is more powerful and/or more convenient than the Tesla Model X which has a range of around 200 miles (321 kilometers), but on the other hand the aforementioned Tesla model costs ~$80,000. In any case, Faraday Future is expected to unveil its production-ready electric vehicle later today at CES 2017, and reports suggest that the company may also be looking for new investors during the event.
