Faraday Future starts shipping FF91 with many buzzwords and a $309k price
After starting production in March, Faraday Future has finally launched its FF91 EV, with an eye-watering $309k starting price and first deliveries starting tomorrow, May 31.
Faraday made the announcements in a livestream on its website today. It titled the announcements “FF 91 Final Launch & Faraday Future 2.0,” suggesting an entry into a new phase of life for the company, and describing the new car as a “new species.”
The FF91 was originally unveiled in 2017. At the time, Faraday said that it intended to produce the car in 2018.
But electric car startup observers are no stranger to delays, so that timeline slipped. And slipped, and slipped – until five years later, we are finally here, at the actual start of FF91 production.
Faraday promised the FF91 would have 1,050 horsepower, a 130 kWh battery capable of 381 miles of range, 200 kW charging, and self-driving capability. It also promised a 0-60 time of 2.27 seconds, which was faster than “other benchmark cars” (namely, Tesla) at the time.
These specs were incredible at the time and are still very good, though after five years of delays “other benchmark cars” have caught up and exceeded those numbers. But Faraday has kept the same specs as its original announcement without watering them down in the interim, which is nice. In fact, today’s video claimed the battery will be upped to 142kWh (though this might be nominal pack capacity, as opposed to 130kWh usable).
Faraday received over 64,000 reservations in 36 hours after the original unveiling. But these were unpaid hand-raisers, and on a more recent check-in, the company claimed to have 14,000 unpaid reservations and only 401 paid reservations, though we haven’t heard anything on those numbers in the last year.
Faraday started the stream with a long discussion about its “FF aiHyper 6×4 Architecture 2.0.” Frankly, our eyes glazed over a little bit in this portion, but here’s their slide “explaining” it. Good luck:
The company said that this is all meant to reflect 4 pillars of development – All-AI, All-Hyper, All-ability, and co-creation. As best we can tell, this was all meant to describe the car’s ability as taking advantage of the best strengths of sedans, sportscars and SUVs; comparing its capabilities to million-dollar hypercars; and using AI in its software-defined platform. Until recently, cars have been defined by hardware, but these days, many cars are being defined by software, with common software updates and modern infotainment systems.
With regards to the “co-creation” pillar, Faraday’s “co-creation platform,” which it is calling “The Mission Farad,” is essentially a referral program – refer friends to download Faraday’s app to get points (called Farads, the same name as the SI unit for electrical capacitance), and those points can be used for rewards. Faraday says these rewards “include awesome FPO titles to brag about on the FF App, Growth value and Co-creation points, and even future use of FF vehicles.”
In the future, Faraday seems like it will use this platform to gather customer feedback on its vehicles, and successful feedback/ideas will reward points to those who suggest it. Faraday is planning a “co-creation day” on June 6, which will presumably include more details on this. And we could imagine it turning into a sales referral program in the future.
The software-defined nature of the car enables various computing options, centered around a 27 inch rear screen (the “world’s largest in-car display”) and camera and a “10G in-vehicle network” (which isn’t a real thing) from three 5G antennas each connected to a different mobile carrier. Faraday mentioned that, among other things, this could enable livestreaming from inside the car (look out, INDI), and AI-powered contextual voice commands.
The car will also have an infrared camera in the driver’s seat to enable facial recognition for additional security. Faraday said that the car’s AI technology will enable it to “know you better than you know yourself,” which is frankly a little bit creepy, especially knowing that it has a camera on you at all times.
When you’re tired of all the livestreaming, you can relax in “spa mode” in the FF91’s “Zero G seats” capable of 60º recline.
Faraday now calls its car “the standard of Ultimate AI TechLuxury,” which is a bit of a mouthful. The company is aiming for the “ultra-spire” market, which as far as we can tell is its own term for luxury car customers. Embattled Faraday founder YT Jia compared the car’s level of luxury to that of Ferrari, Rolls-Royce and Maybach, setting quite a high bar.
Since then we’ve learned that Maybach is officially entering the EV market this year, so FF91 will have a direct competitor there. Faraday thinks that one day it will become a leader in the ultra-luxury market, which it says sells around 55,000 units globally per year. Though Jia also said that Faraday will not use the same upscale materials as are included in these other vehicles, and rather focus “silicon-based” luxury which allows owners to better leverage their time.
And of course, no automotive announcement can go without a discussion of autonomous driving technology, where Faraday made several claims about existing capabilities, and more coming later through over-the-air updates. Faraday calls these “FF aiDriving”:
In addition to these promises of imminent self-driving capability (hmm, where have we heard this before…), Faraday says that the FF 91 will have the ability to create custom and proprietary maps, perhaps in order to help train the car to drive around private grounds that are not captured by public road maps. But the FF91’s FF aiHypercar+ subscription system will set you back $14,900 per year – but hey, at least you’ll get some Farad points thrown in.
And, finally, there’s the price. All of the above will set you back a cool $309k for the limited-edition “FF 91 2.0 Futurist Alliance,” or $249k for the “FF 91 2.0 Futurist.” No news, yet, on what the base price of the standard 2.0 edition will be.
In a show of exceptional grace, the company also guarantees resale price, stating that it will ensure a 60% trade-in price after the first three years (thus only costing $41,200 per year!). But maybe owners should think twice before trading it in, because Jia says that the car will have “irreplaceable collectible value.”
Electrek’s Take
The FF91 was never going to be cheap, given how Faraday has always targeted it as a luxury vehicle, but now that we see the actual price, there’s a certain amount of reality that sets in.
With this pricing, Faraday is stuck between a rock and a hard place. It needs to set the price high in order to make money on a low production luxury vehicle, but a high price is a lot harder to command when there’s more competition in the market than there was 5 years ago, and when economic uncertainty and interest rates make it harder for people to justify these higher prices.
As we mentioned when Faraday started production, this has been a long time coming with lots of delays on the way. And, frankly, we did not expect the company to get this far.
When this car was originally announced, I noted that it seemed like a “kitchen sink” announcement, with a vehicle that included every conceivable concept car feature. In a word, I thought it was unrealistic.
So, it’s quite an accomplishment that they have made it here. Bringing any car to market is incredibly difficult, so they deserve praise for that.
But today’s livestream felt much the same as the original announcement. The original announcement seemed driven by hype buzzwords more than anything, and today is no different. AI is the buzzword of today, and it was mentioned hundreds of times in the ~100-minute livestream. Faraday is even changing its stock ticker to “FFAI” from “FFIE,” according to today’s announcement.
The company couldn’t even keep its own buzzwords straight, simultaneously audibly calling one feature “AI carpet” while subtitles and slides called it “Magic all-in-one” – and then continued into discussions of hyper multi-vectoring, 3rd aiSpace and SynXwap, which is apparently some sort of NFT (that was 2021’s nonsense buzzword, get with the times Faraday).
A tip: jumbled buzzword nonsense doesn’t make you sound accomplished or smarter than the observer, it makes you sound like a grifter. Knock it off, Faraday, if you can.
Despite finally shipping cars, this is only the beginning of the challenges related to building vehicles. Now Faraday has to find customers, and at the price they’re asking, that could be a challenge.
There are already some excellent electric cars on the market, from both mainstream players and upstarts. These span a pretty wide swath of price ranges and levels of luxury. While the FF 91 promises significant luxury and seems to focus on extreme comfort of its riders (and “riders” is the right term here, since the company’s focus on rear seat comfort is aimed at the Chinese market, where it’s common for the wealthy to have personal drivers), it’s not the only startup in the luxury electric car market.
Lucid Motors also occupies that space, and has some very good technology going for it, and a head start on Faraday. And yet, it’s still on rocky ground in this market, and is having some difficulty finding buyers even at the high 5 figure level. The same goes for the behemoth of the EV industry, Tesla, whose Model X accounts for a tiny percentage of the company’s sales – and its base price also has one less digit than the FF91’s.
Since Faraday is aiming well past this high price range, it’s likely to have an even larger struggle finding buyers. Maybe some will come out of the woodwork looking for a luxurious electric crossover from a startup other than Tesla or Lucid at three times the price, but that is a rather small niche at this point.
Especially if Faraday is going to call its own car an “elephant,” which it did not once, but twice during this announcement video.
Here’s the full livestream of the announcement:
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Global renewable developer and energy giant RWE has halted its US offshore wind operations “for the time being” because of the “political environment” the Trump administration has created.
RWE, Germany’s biggest electricity producer, said in March that it had dialed back its US offshore wind activities. But now, CEO Marcus Krebber said in a speech transcript, which he’ll deliver at the company’s Annual General Meeting in Essen on April 30, that its US offshore wind business is now closed (but it wasn’t all bad news):
In the US, where we have stopped our offshore activities for the time being, our business in onshore wind, solar energy, and battery storage has so far been developing very dynamically. At the start of this year, we reached an important milestone when our US generation capacity hit the 10 gigawatt mark. The construction of a further 4 gigawatts is secured.
He went on to say that renewables have created regional value and jobs, but that the company remains “cautious given the political developments.” RWE has introduced more stringent requirements for future US investments:
All necessary federal permits must be in place. Tax credits must be safe harbored and all relevant tariff risks mitigated. In addition, onshore wind and solar projects must have secured offtake at the time of the investment decision. Only if these conditions are met will further investments be possible, given the political environment.
About half of RWE’s installed renewable capacity is in the US, where it’s the third-largest renewable energy company through its subsidiary, RWE Clean Energy. RWE holds the rights to develop US offshore wind projects in New York, Louisiana, and California.
RWE paid $1.1 billion for the New York lease area in 2022, where it’s meant to develop the 3 gigawatt (GW) Community Offshore Wind with the UK’s National Grid. Community Offshore Wind was projected to come online in the early 2030s and expected to power more than a million homes.
The developer paid $5.6 billion for the Louisiana lease in the Gulf of Mexico in 2023 as the lone bidder for development rights, and the Canopy Offshore Wind project off Northern California was not expected to be completed for another decade.
Read more: Trump admin halts $5 billion NY offshore wind project mid-build
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It’s that time of year again, time for events across the country to show off electric vehicles at Drive Electric Earth Month.
Drive Electric Earth Month is an offshoot of Drive Electric Week, a long-running annual tradition hosting meetups mostly in the US, but also occasionally in other countries. It started as Drive Electric Earth Day, but since not every event can happen on the same day, they went ahead and extended it to encompass “Earth Month” events that happen across the month of April. It’s all organized by Plug In America, the Sierra Club, the Electric Vehicle Association, EV Hybrid Noire, and Drive Electric USA.
Events consist of general Earth Day-style community celebrations, EV Ride & Drives where you can test drive several EVs in one place, and opportunities to talk to EV owners and ask them questions about what it’s like to live with an EV, away from the pressure of a dealership.
This month, there are 158 events registered across the US and 1 in Mexico (including one online webinar about things to consider when purchasing an EV).
Events have been happening all month, but the biggest weekend is this upcoming one, APril 26-27.
One really neat event was the Asheville event, which showcased the resiliency of EVs in an area devastated by Hurricane Helene, which was made more severe by climate change. That event was attended by the Rivian R1T which famously got dragged 100 feet submerged in mud and came out running fine.
But the bulk of the events happened on the weekends surrounding Earth Day, April 22, so there were several last weekend and will be even more this upcoming weekend.
There are plenty of events in the big cities where you’d expect, but Plug In America wanted to highlight a few of the events in smaller places around the country. Here’s a sampling of upcoming events:
- Big Island EV – Cruise and Picnic in Waimea, HI on April 26, 10am-1pm – EV drivers will congregate in various places around the Big Island (Kona, Waimea, Waikoloa and Hilo), then drive up Saddle Road to the Gil Kahele Recreation Area on Mauna Kea for a potluck and a chance to talk about the experience of owning EVs on the Big Island.
- Santa Barbara Earth Day 2025 and Green Car Show in Santa Barbara, CA on April 26-27, 11am-8pm – This is part of Santa Barbara’s Earth Day celebration, which routinely attracts 30,000 participants and is one of the longest-running Earth Day celebrations on the planet. The Green Car Show includes ride & drives and an “Owners Corner” where owners can showcase their EVs and attendees can check them out and ask questions.
- Earth Day’25 – EV’s role in a sustainable future in Queretaro City, Mexico on April 26, 9am-4pm – The sole Mexican event, this is a combined in-person/online seminar at the Querétaro Institute of Technology.
- Norman Earth Day Festival in Norman, OK on April 27, 12-5pm – Another municipal Earth Day festival, with hands-on activities for kids to learn about the environment. A portion of the parking lot reserved for an EV car show for EV owners who pre-register to show off their vehicles.
- Oregon Electric Vehicle Association Test Drive & Information Expo in Portland, OR on April 27, 10am-4pm – This one is at Daimler Truck’s North American HQ, and will have several EVs for test drives, owner displays (including DIY gas-to-EV conversions), and keynote presentations by EV experts. They’ll even have a 1914 Detroit Electric EV available for test rides!
- And, we at Electrek want to give a shoutout to Rove’s EV Drive Days in Santa Ana 10am-3pm April 28 – ROVE is the company behind the “full-service” EV charging concept that we’ve talked about several times here on Electrek, and we like what they’re doing for EV charging. They’ve hosted a few community events, and this is their contribution to Earth Month.
Each event has a different assortment of activities (e.g. test drives won’t be available at every event, generally just the larger ones attended by local dealerships), so be sure to check the events page to see what the plan is for your local event.
These events have offered a great way to connect with owners and see the newest electric vehicle tech, and even get a chance to do test rides and drives in person. Attendees got to hear unfiltered information from actual owners about the benefits and trials of owning EVs, allowing for longer and more genuine (and often more knowledgeable) conversations than one might normally encounter at a dealership.
And if you’re an owner – you can show off your car and answer those questions for interested onlookers.
To view all the events and see what’s happening in your area, you can check out the list of events or the events map. You can also sign up to volunteer at your local events, and if you plan to show off your electric car, you can RSVP on each event page and list the vehicle that you plan to show (or see what other vehicles have already registered).
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