Electric vehicle startup Faraday Future has today unveiled its first concept vehicle at the CES 2016 technology exhibition.
The company, which is mostly funded by Chinese video giant LeTV, is calling the vehicle the ‘FFZERO1’.
The FFZERO1 is a so-called hypercar which makes use of the massive power generated by electric motors to provide incredibly fast acceleration.
While its exterior design uses lightweight carbon fiber and composite materials, it is not a completely radical departure from the designs of other concept supercars.
The interior however of the one-seater vehicle shows off a number of new technologies. These include the use of a heads-up display (HUD) projected onto the car’s windshield and a steering wheel designed to integrate with a driver’s smartphone.
In terms of specifications, the all-electric vehicle is able to accelerate from 0 to 60mph (96.5km/h) in less than 3 seconds. As well, the car’s 4 ‘Quad Core’ motors provide the car with 1000 horsepower and enable a top speed of over 200mph (322km/h).
Model for future mass market vehicles
The FFZERO1 is not intended for the mass market, but rather to show off technologies which the company intends to integrate into future vehicles.
Among the most important of these is what Faraday Future calls ‘Variable Platform Architecture’.
Variable Platform Architecture is the company’s vision of a standard backbone for all of its vehicles made up of variable battery and motor configurations built into a standardised frame.
This architecture can be adjusted with minimal work to create vehicles of a number of different sizes, weights and battery ranges.
In addition, the concept car also shows the company’s commitment to vehicle autonomy, with its large array of inbuilt sensors. These sensors, also a key part of the Variable Platform Architecture, allow for the car to become increasingly autonomous as software development progresses.
Faraday Future has only been around for 18 months, and employs only around 550 staff, however it has big plans for expansion. In the coming weeks it will break ground on its first factory in Nevada where it will produce its first mass market vehicles.
Despite this, interested customers will have to wait, with the first units not expected to be available until 2017 at the earliest.