On the last day of March, Faraday Future (FF for short) held a production ceremony in hanford, California, USA, announcing the official mass production of its first flagship model FF 9 1 Futurist. According to the existing plan of FF, the first batch of FF 9 1 Futurist will be off-line in early April and delivered before the end of April 2023.
From the thunder of LeTV in the past to leaving the United States to create Faraday's future; Jia Yueting's dream of building a car can be said to be full of twists and turns, from the initial financial problems to the later contradictions with partners. This plot can be made into a commercial blockbuster. Now FF Company has finally started mass production of FF9 1 Futurist. After many improvements and upgrades, this model seems to have been launched in appearance and performance.
It took nine years and lost 24 billion blood. It seems that Mr. Jia can take revenge this time, exchange American leeks for China's debts, and even go back to China.
But don't rush to be happy. With boss Jia's consistent reputation, this "dream of building a car" may not be realized smoothly even if it is mass-produced.
FF9 1
After all, Jia Yueting has missed the best opportunity to build a car.
It is 2023, and the new energy vehicle market has undergone tremendous changes.
If FF9 1 debuted on 20 17, it can also be described as "stunning". After many years, with a large number of new energy vehicle manufacturers at home and abroad launching various new energy vehicles, people have long been accustomed to the styling design, functional configuration and various intelligent functions of new energy vehicles. At this time, the mass-produced FF9 1 has many differentiated advantages in product strength, such as autonomous driving, intelligent cockpit and dynamic performance.
On the other hand, the global economic slowdown and weak demand, coupled with the surge in production capacity of new energy vehicles, have made today's new energy market competition have begun to enter the Red Sea stage.
Take China, the largest market for new energy, as an example. In the fourth quarter of 2022, Tesla once showed signs of overcapacity, so that it finally had to cut prices to digest production capacity. At the beginning of 2023, Tesla took the lead in price reduction and pulled almost all car companies into the "price war". In fact, at present, apart from Tesla and BYD, which can rely on scale and cost advantages to achieve profits, other new energy automobile manufacturers can only continue to cut prices on the basis of losses to protect market share.
So how far FF9 1 can go after mass production, positioning high-end, but not differentiated, not to mention the scale and cost advantages, will be a big question mark.
Money is the biggest problem.
Of course, what is lacking most in building a car now is not the product strength, brand strength, scale cost and so on mentioned above. What should be lacking most is money. Especially for a new car-making enterprise, money is never enough. As long as there is enough money, most of the problems mentioned above are not problems.
But will Faraday have money in the future? Yes, but maybe not much. From the appearance of FF9 1 in 20 17 to the announcement of mass production and sales in 20 18, it has experienced four ticket jumps so far, and every ticket jump is inseparable from money.
The first jump was the breakdown of the financing agreement between 2065 438+08 FF and Evergrande; The second ticket jump was in 20 19, when FF claimed that it was difficult to raise funds and postponed mass production again until 2020. The third time was in 2020, and FF claimed to go all out to complete the equity financing target including IPO. According to the production plan, FF 9 1 will start mass production about 9 months after the successful delivery of equity financing; After the fourth successful listing of 202 1 FF, FF promised to mass-produce FF9 1 in 2022, but by 2022, it claimed that it could not be mass-produced due to the extra financing time, scale and possibility.
Due to the popularity of new energy vehicles, the valuation of new energy vehicle manufacturers has also begun to change. Except for one Tesla, we have seen a very big decline in the valuations of all listed new energy vehicle manufacturers. In America, RIVIAN is called "Tesla Killer"; In China, Weilai Ideal Tucki and Zero Run, which just went public last year, experienced a sharp drop in share prices. FF's share price has also dropped from the historical high of $20.75/share to the long-term level below 1 dollar/share. Even if it has been successfully listed, FF still can't get rid of the predicament of lack of money.
So this time, Jia Yueting got another financing of $65438+35 million from nowhere, which contributed to the mass production of FF9 1. But how long will it take to get to FF from $6543.8+35 billion? It is definitely not enough.
If in the next 2-3 months, FF9 1 still fails to achieve mass production delivery, and at the same time wins word of mouth in the market, opens up sales, proves that its brand and products have market prospects, and then promotes its share price to achieve refinancing, then this mass production will still be reduced to a "show".
Write at the end:
Speaking of "putting on a show", it is Jia Yueting's specialty.
At the FF9 1 mass production ceremony, there was no production car, only a "frame" with FF logo was displayed. Chen Xuefeng, global CEO of FF, also explained that this is actually the first production car to be rolled off the assembly line in hanford, California. But the whole car didn't show up
At the beginning of this year, in order to promote mass production, FF also voluntarily revealed that it had signed a framework agreement with Huanggang, Hubei Province, and planned to move its future China headquarters to Huanggang. The headquarters will be jointly funded by Huanggang Municipal Government Guidance Fund, related industry funds and FF * * * *, and Huanggang will also provide financial and policy support for FF.
After all, everything, including this mass production ceremony, is for capital. You can't do anything without money; But I can't do it, let alone get the money. In this case, Jia Yueting's "last battle" may not be able to jump out of this strange circle. (Text/Youshi car old gun)
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