
New Electric Car Company Emerges: Faraday Future - allanberger
http://wot.motortrend.com/1507_new_california_based_electric_car_company_emerges_faraday_future.html
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cliftonk
I sincerely doubt a "super-futuristic" aesthetic is going to catch on in the
mainstream. One of the reasons the Model S has done so well is because it
resembles other large luxury sedans that it competes against.

One very thing in particular about futuristic designs, to include many recent
domestic cars (like the new dodge sedans and sports cars) is little vertical
space given for windows. In contrast, one of the great things about the
Porsche 911 design is that you have incredibly clear 360 views with big
windows. That's a major design feature that separates cars that are in
continuous production for over 50 years and those that need design refreshes
every few years.

Best of luck, FF.

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morcheeba
Remember the Honda Civic hybrid? No? It predated the Prius and looked exactly
like a Civic. The first generation Prius looked pretty normal, too. It wasn't
until the second generation Prius, with its radical styling that announced it
was a hybrid, until it took off.

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wh0car3s
Prius came first (introduced in 1997), then came the Honda Insight (1999) -
the Civic hybrid rolled off around 2001.

2nd gen. Prius was introduced 2003, but sales only picked up around 2005 <
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius)
>. The design wasn't the only factor - I would say Toyota's marketing and
rising gas prices contributed too < [http://zfacts.com/gas-price-history-
graph](http://zfacts.com/gas-price-history-graph) >.

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beambot
> It will have 15 percent higher specific energy than a Tesla Model S 85 kW-hr
> pack. That works out to 98 kW-hr.

Except that their ship date is 2 years out (best case, since it's really
aggressive!). That gives Tesla a pretty good window to improve their own
battery packs. This isn't a market you can win by getting a 10% improvement on
battery life / range -- there's a lot more nuance than that. I hope they have
other value propositions in mind...?

~~~
Someone
I think those numbers, on their own, are as good as meaningless. Volume,
weight, and price of the battery pack and either of these relative to the
size/power efficiency of the car will be way more important than that
relatively tiny difference in capacity.

~~~
teraflop
I think the author of the article might be confused. "Specific energy"
normally refers to energy _per unit mass_ , which is a useful thing to compare
between batteries. The author is acting as though it refers to total capacity,
which is less meaningful.

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aidenn0
I came here to comment on that; almost as bad as "X Watts of Power, which is
enough to run an average household for Y hours"

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ChuckMcM
Interesting, of course talk is cheap as they say. I don't think anyone has
spun up a factory to make something as sophisticated as a car in less than
14months though. That is going to be a real challenge, and supply chain?
Fugiddaboutit! Not to mention the entire world's supply of Lithium battery
production for the next 4 years is already allocated, going to be really tough
to hit the 2017 date I think. But those things aside, the world could use more
voices in the space, if only to keep the folks in the space looking in their
rear view mirror and improving.

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Jugurtha
It is interesting to see that a new company is employing 200 persons and
hiring at a rate of 10 per week.

In my opinion, this has been carefully planned long ago.

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MCRed
Well, with a name like that, I would naturally assume they are using super
capacitors instead of lithium chemistry batteries. This would make sense if
there was a challenge (or high cost) to getting sufficient current out of the
cells-- but Tesla's acceleration capabilities are about the max you could want
to safely put into a passenger car I think.

Or maybe they just took the name cause it's associated with electricity.

In that case, I think "Faraday" would be a much better name. Adding "Future"
to it makes it sound like it's a fictional high tech company from the 1950s.
Feels retro.

~~~
mattkevan
They should have called themselves 'Edison'. Bring back a bit of the old
rivalry.

~~~
higherpurpose
Would it end up acquiring Tesla and bankrupting it?

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Cshelton
So Tesla started with luxury cars only. Well that's all you can buy still. I
feel this companies real opportunity with a 2017 launch date would be a mass
produced, under 40k EV. That will be right around the time Tesla might release
the model 3. This company clearly has some massive funding and talent behind
them, sounds like they can afford to start on the mass produced midrange EV
right from the get go and be really successful. The market is begging for a
40k EV that is not the Chevy volt... We want a 40k tesla (or FF).

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Guvante
Unlikely, the perils of trying to make a vehicle for the cheapest price
possible can easily kill your company.

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_ph_
This is great news. As exited I am about Tesla, the more companies producing
electrical cars, the better for all. When I read "a new electrical car
startup" I was sceptical, but looking at who works there, there should be some
business plan behind the company. Perhaps we really now live in a day and age
where car startups become possible. That would mean some exciting times ahead
for quick progress in the mobility sector.

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higherpurpose
I wish them good luck. The car market could use more players that attract
attention to high-quality electric cars. However, I'm not so sure about this
sort of "all-star" unnaturally born companies. I think they usually fail. But
at least these guys aren't making a hybrid, so they probably won't screw it up
with old-think.

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aerovistae
They have a cool logo and I'm all for further progress in this field and hope
the best, but I have a feeling this is yet another ooh-shiny company lacking
the ability to really build something on the scale of what Tesla has done. The
fact that the lead designer built the i3 doesn't bode well either.

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schwabacher
why doesn't that bode well?

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lvs
Because the i3 was an abortive product in every way. It's hideous, the range
is terrible (80 mi), the charge time is impractical (3h on a 220V and 10h on a
110V), and they wanted $45k for it.

~~~
rconti
It's a premium Leaf. It's hard for people to understand premium electric car,
when electric = economy in many people's minds.

The first time I drove an i3, I immediately got it -- "oh, it's a BMW. It's
actually a nice place to be". The driving dynamics were great, and the design
astoundingly useful and space-efficient. You really have to play with it in
person to appreciate how much space there is and yet how compact the body is.

People will pay extra for luxury cars that don't DO anything functionally
different from a run-of-the-mill sedan. Why not pay more for electrics that
don't do anything different from run-of-the-mill electrics?

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rdl
I think the big white space left by Tesla (aside from cheap cars, which is
problematic) is reconfigurable or cargo/commercial.

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ZeroGravitas
I think the LEAF has a 7 seated taxi variant, as well as a cargo van version.
I believe this is a growing segment as the lower fuel and maintenance costs
have more impact as you drive more miles.

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kwhitefoot
There is at least one taxi driver in Oslo, Norway, who uses a Tesla S. You
don't necesarily need a special variant to use as a taxi.

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wahsd
I'm sorry, why am I looking at renderings of the corporate headquarters
instead of at least additional rendering of the vehicle exterior and interior?

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dmritard96
I hope they just leap the driven electric car and focus on an autonomous
electric car.

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apendleton
In case anyone was looking for the not-mobile version (removing the "m."
doesn't work!), it's here:
[http://wot.motortrend.com/1507_new_california_based_electric...](http://wot.motortrend.com/1507_new_california_based_electric_car_company_emerges_faraday_future.html)

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m_myers
Thanks. Can a mod please change the link?

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kriro
Is this their website?:
[http://faradaymotorworks.com/home](http://faradaymotorworks.com/home)

It looks pretty...nondescript (and ugly but that's subjective I guess). +yahoo
small business webhosting

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josh_steiner
Nope. [http://faradayfuture.com](http://faradayfuture.com)

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Animats
Another car for the 1%. Is this really necessary?

"Connected" may not be the future of cars. The Google self-driving car isn't
very "connected". It doesn't talk to other cars, nor does it need to. It
watches what's happening in the real world. Urmson, who heads Google's self-
driving effort, threw cold water on the "connected car" people at a conference
recently. All the effort on car-to-car communications is a complete waste of
time for automatic driving.

