The Faraday Future FFZERO1 electric concept car is shown after an unveiling at a news conference in Las Vegas, Nevada January 4, 2016.STEVE MARCUS/Reuters
The FFZero1 – unveiled Monday night by Faraday Future – is a 1,000-horsepower, all-wheel-drive, optionally autonomous, fully electric car that seats only the driver inside a futuristic carbon-fibre cockpit and leaves room on the steering wheel to dock your mobile device.
Whew.
Faraday Future – the new kid on the block – a company led by former Tesla executives and backed financially by Chinese media company Letv, debuted the Batmobile-like concept car under a big-top tent on the Strip, in advance of breaking ground on a $1-billion production facility in north Las Vegas.
The teardrop-profiled exterior of the FFZero1 is two-toned – black in front, silver in the rear with a gloss finish. Lead designer Richard Kim, who wore matching silver shoes for his presentation, has designed "aero tunnels" to let air flow through the vehicle, reducing drag.
The all-white interior "is pure and extremely clean; it wouldn't be practical in a combustion-engine car," he said. The seat is NASA-inspired and the dashboard wraps around the driver's shoulders to become an instrument cluster.
The FFZero1 is unlikely to be produced. Its debut as a concept is to plant a seed in the consumer imagination.
Nick Samson, formerly head of chassis engineering at Tesla, now vice-president of product research and development at Faraday, saw a sketch on the desk of Kim and decided it could be transformed into a tangible model of the company's technological and design philosophies.
"I prefer to think not so much a concept car but a car of concepts – an extreme test bed for designs we're working on for upcoming vehicles," Kim said.
The FFZero1, in theory, would be produced off the same "variable platform architecture" [VPA] as the company's practical commuter cars.
To Samson, the car symbolizes how the automotive industry is changing rapidly. He pointed out that nine years ago to the day, Apple introduced the iPhone, a device that went far beyond changing the mobile phone, transforming the way people communicate and organize their lives.
"We believe with every bone in our bodies that you don't need 100 years of tradition" to bring revolution to the industry, he said, adding, "What we want is to shape mobility for generations to come."
Samson, who has also worked with Lotus and Jaguar Land Rover, said Tesla had made a similar impact on the automotive industry and asserted that Faraday Future will ramp up the technology, especially with connectivity. The car is envisioned as being compatible with your phone – the driver would use an app to customize settings such as traction control for each trip.
Founded just 18 months ago, Faraday has 750 employees and Samson said the first production vehicle will be delivered "in a couple of years."
Kim moved from BMW, where he worked on the company's electric i3. He said the VPA will be highly efficient for production, adaptable to every sort of vehicle, from luxury sedan to crossover to pickup truck.