End of the road for Faraday Friday?

Earlier this month at CES Faraday Automotive introduced their Tesla rivalling car the Friday but before it can even go into production the company is looking like it will not last much longer. There are many rumours that the company will close down if no fresh funds are injected into the company. Several key top personnel have left the company since end of 2016. Building a car from scratch is no easy feat and without a product to sell to recover the investment cost it is an uphill battle to turn things around. Time is not on their side and having spent 3 years to develop the cars the money is surely being burnt at a fast rate. Total staff count of 1400 is a large number for a new start up. Despite the CEO and founder being a billionaire, throwing millions into the company without a solid product to sell will eventually make any investor think twice.

Faraday had a good concept but failing in their first 2 attempts definitely hurt them. With some fresh injection of money Faraday can turn things around but they need to focus on getting the basics right and move away from attempting to make a sports car and concentrate on making a simple electric car that is affordable and innovative. It will be hard for Faraday to compete head on with Tesla since Tesla has almost a decade head start over Faraday. Tesla is ahead in terms of infrastructure, technology, manufacturing and R&D. The best way is for Faraday to make an affordable entry level electric car that is able to be charged quickly and offer good driving range. Keeping it affordable will allow them to quickly get cars into the market and gradually gain market share while at the same time plan for the charging infrastructure.

Many companies make bold claims about their ability to build better cars than Tesla but so far none have even made a car that can rival the Tesla Model S or P. No point making claims when there is no product to show.

The other new kids on the block are Rimac and NextEv. Lets see which of them will survive and produce a car that people can afford to buy and is practical to use on a daily basis. Concepts are nice but no one sells concepts. People want to buy real cars and not dreams that the car makers project.