Electric vehicle startup Faraday Future has reportedly canceled its plans to build a large automobile factory in Nevada.
The factory, located in Las Vegas was to cost the company approximately $1bn and would have created around 13,000 for the local area.
The huge site was intended to be used to produce Faraday Future’s first mass market vehicle, the FF91, which it had announced in January this year.
According to a statement by the company, Faraday Future canceled the project to focus their efforts on a new business model.
“We have decided to put a hold on our factory at the Apex site in North Las Vegas. We remain committed to the Apex site in Las Vegas for long-term vehicle manufacturing,” said Faraday Future CFO Stefan Krause in a statement.
While this is the official line by the company, the situation actually appears to be far worse for Faraday Future.
The company’s main financier, Jia Yueting, the CEO of Chinese media/technology conglomerate LeEco appears to be in severe financial difficulty. Just last week a Chinese prosecutor froze $182m of Jia’s assets due to unpaid loans.
More confusing still, Faraday Future is not the only electric vehicle venture which Jia is involved in, with at least two other projects connected to his companies.
In a statement following the freezing of his assets, he pledged to refocus his efforts on electric cars, however, it was unclear which of these EV ventures he was referring to.
The freeze combined with a number of other difficulties appears to be causing severe cashflow problems for Faraday Future.
According to reporting by Business Insider, the company is not just canceling its planned plant in Arizona, but also scaling down operations at its LA headquarters.
Within this environment, it is unclear if Faraday Future will be able to survive the coming months unless it is able to find new and more diversified sources of investment.
Nonetheless, the company remains upbeat that it can still deliver on its target of shipping the first FF91 vehicles by sometimes next year.
