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Mysterious billion-dollar car company is taking on Tesla
- anotheryou 11y agolets try to snoop around! http://justcapital.com/ http://justcapital.com/ uses the same privacy policy (word for word) edit: Their webmail is chinese, makes Apple quite unlikely http://webmail.faradayfuture.com/ http://webmail.faradayfuture.com/ edit2: faradayfuture.net was also registered at the same time and has a different whois (still cloaked, but more chinese)
- ethana 11y agoIt could just be the Chinese group that bough Fisker.
- rsync 11y agoThat would be cool if Fisker made an electric car and not just a hybrid ...
- x5n1 11y agovery reasonable to think its chinese.
- kriro 11y agoI'd think they would plan to manufacture in China though.
- dogma1138 11y agoManufacturing high end tech in China isn't as cheap as one might think, when it comes to really high end electronics China/Taiwan is usually really cheaper only at extremly high volumes same goes for any other type of high end manufacturing where human labor isn't a factor anymore. Other "over-seas" manufacturing cost reductions come mainly when you delegate the entire production operation to a sub-contractor this means that much of your engineering post the prototyping phase such as the "design for manufacturing", tooling, and assembly line engineering are delegated to local engineering firms which while are much more expensive now than even 10 years ago still considerably cheaper than US or European engineers. If you can't or do not want to do it when the volume isn't huge, and when pretty much all of the work has to be done outside of china you won't see any real cost benefits to it. So when you combine the already existing experience in both automotive and high tech engineering fields as well as government grants in the US for green/renewable energy and emerging technologies making a Tesla 2.0 in China will probably not cost you sufficiently less to justify the costs of having to build it in China and import it into the US. And if you also going to replicate Tesla's artificial scarcity business model well then at that volume China might become even a more expensive place to produce in.
- seanmcdirmid 11y agoI wouldn't throw Taiwan in with China, they have pretty advanced foundries these days, definitely on par with Korea and maybe even Japan.
- notatoad 11y agoThere's nothing to say they won't. The article says they're operating out of an old Nissan research facility right now, not that they've bought a factory in California. Everybody else doing autonomous and electric vehicle research also seems to be operating out of california right now as well. It's where the people who know that stuff are, so if a Chinese company wants to build an electric car, it makes sense that they'd set up shop in California too. When it comes time to move to manufacturing, they can do that anywhere.
- MagnumOpus 11y ago> Everybody else doing autonomous and electric vehicle research also seems to be operating out of california right now as well That is a particulary narrow set of blinders. Even in the US it is not true - MCity and U-M's research in Michigan is a good counter example. And when you look over the pond, there's a lot more going on in Stuttgart and Munich than in the Valley (with less breathless hype but more actual progress). Of course for Chinese car builders it is easier to poach US engineers, research and know-how to build their own industry - less problems with the language than in Germany, less distrust given that Californian research is half run by Chinese grad students anyway.
- huac 11y agolots of places use the same privacy policy, not just that VC firm
- toephu2 11y agointeresting, just fyi their webmail is powered by aliyun, which is Alibaba's cloud and dropbox equivalent (or basically the Chinese version of corporate gmail or google apps)
- harryf 11y agoAlibaba? Would be funny if Yahoo! was involved in this
- chejazi 11y agoAlso non-Apple hardware in the photos on their site.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Angostura 11y agoWebmail now seems to have disappeared.
- noobermin 11y agoPerhaps they read hn?
- lordnacho 11y agoFantastic, more competition is exactly what I need as a consumer. I really do think the self-driving car is around the corner, based on chatting with a guy on the Google team. No idea why it would need to be secret, though? It could just be low publicity, rather than secrecy?
- tracker1 11y agoI think what is really needed is to get rid of the dealer protection racket/laws... That will do more to shake up auto buying/sales in terms of new cars into the market than anything else...
- gtrubetskoy 11y agoAnother not so mysterious company that I once used to love is focusing exclusively on an electric vehicle: http://www.saabcars.com/ http://www.saabcars.com/
- psadri 11y agoOdd, the rims on the electric version look just like Tesla's turbine rims. I never owned a Saab myself but I get the impression they are solid, lovable cars.
- josephpmay 11y agoSaab had those rims long before Tesla did. I could be totally wrong, but I believe this Saab doesn't really have anything to do with the Saab of old, besides the name and reusing an old design.
- mongol 11y agoMade in the same factory too. But owners are new
- OopsCriticality 11y agoYou know how if you're stopped at a light and clean the windshield, the washer fluid sprays, the wipers cycle, and then there's some drips of washer fluid at the top of the wiped area that then drips down the windshield so you have to manually trigger the wipers again? My old Saab had a delay built in to the call for wiper fluid so that it would automatically sweep the wipers a few seconds to get those last drips. It was but one of many thoughtful design elements. Saabs had a character that was unique; regardless of how one felt personally about driving one, the auto world is poorer place without Saab.
- seesomesense 11y agoOne Ford bought Saab and dumbed down the cars, the writing was on the wall. Bankruptcy was inevitable.
- swang 11y ago> Incorporation papers filed with the California secretary of state's office links Faraday to a Chinese media company operated by Jia Yueting, an entrepreneur who founded Leshi Internet Information & Technology. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3307660/Mysterious-firm-backed-one-China-s-richest-men-set-build-billion-dollar-factory-Tesla-Apple-electric-car.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3307660/Myste...
- gchokov 11y agoThat space is only going to get more crowded.. which is good!
- fleeno 11y agoI can't wait for more cars companies named after scientists! Maybe someday I'll be able to get a car from... Hertz?
- bliti 11y agoI'd love to buy their performance model: The 8 Gigahertz turbo. Sorry, I had to.
- germanier 11y agoUnlikely, unless the car rental company of the same name starts producing their own models.
- ccvannorman 11y agoNow I'm picturing the latest in automobile technology: the Benjabug Franklin! It designs ambitious hats, runs off of lightning, and modifies the timezone it's in dynamically for +/- hours of fun!
- volaski 11y agogood one!
- volaski 11y agoI have no idea why this got downvoted. Maybe you didn't get the joke?
- tsuraan 11y agoOne thing that's likely to attract downvotes are comments to the tune of "+1", "I agree", or in this case, "good one!". The sentiment can be expressed with the little up-arrow next to the comment you like, and then it doesn't clutter up the thread. HN tries to keep a high signal to noise ratio, and part of that is greying out comments that really don't add anything. FWIW, I didn't downvote you, but that's probably the reason that people did.
- mschuster91 11y agoWhy does everyone and his mother love the X6 design? It's the biggest (though only) design failure BMW has ever launched. As to the rest of the article, well, competition is certainly good for the e-car ecosystem. Interesting times ahead!
- RadioactiveMan 11y agoWhat makes it a design failure if it is so popular?
- mschuster91 11y agoPersonal opinion tbh. That ass of the car just doesn't look like a BMW ass to me.
- lsc 11y agoThe "crossover" market isn't for car people. It's for regular people who actually want a minivan, but who are too embarrassed to drive a minivan.
- threeseed 11y agoIt is a polarising design but it's been quite popular. The reason for its popularity is a combination of two markets: (a) families where the wife wants wants a SUV but the husband wants something more sporty/aggressive and (b) inner city workers who just want more ride height.
- LAMike 11y agoNever thought of the Apple connection before... Seems plausible
- threeseed 11y agoReally doesn't. Apple has never actively released who works for them except their leadership team, they never put up fake web pages, they never prerelease products. This would be a complete 180 in terms of their style and behaviour.
- vicapow 11y agoThey've also never built a car before
- salimmadjd 11y agoFrom the rumor mill from people who moved from Tesla to Faraday. They're going for the mid market vs. Tesla's high-end market. Also, from the same source the quality and feel is no where near Tesla yet. So don't expect Tesla, but expect something 30-40% cheaper.
- maxerickson 11y agoThat makes the headline sound even worse. Something like "New company hopes to start selling electric cars in 2017" better reflects the content of the article (which hilariously talks about other attention the company has gotten as hype (I realize an editor probably wrote the headline, not the author)).
- mpg33 11y agouhhh Apple?
- forgotpwtomain 11y agoThe problem is still that in most regions of the world electric cars are still a gimmick with an environmental friendly marketing spin. Essentially dirty methods of producing electricity and converting that electricity back into mechanical energy are less efficient than gasoline engines. So yes - we do need electric cars and it's great companies are making them but that won't have a significant impact until the industrial-scale energy problems are addressed.
- sokoloff 11y agoYou assert that electric is less efficient. Can you share any data (or even back of the envelope math) to support? Small gasoline engines are pretty damned inefficient, and I think it's only reasonable to compare full lifecycle costs of our energy sources. For coal, that includes mining. For gasoline, that includes refining (and military defense of oil?). For all, it includes transportation, etc. It's not obvious to me that gasoline is more efficient than electric. (Nor is it obvious to me that the converse is true, either.)
- temuze 11y agoDepends on the country. In countries that have electricity coming from fossil fuels, it's inherently less efficient. In countries like Norway where everything mostly comes from hydro power, this is completely different.
- sokoloff 11y agoTypical average power plant efficiency is around 33% http://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_08_02.html http://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_08_02.html That's slightly better than the typical maximum efficiency of an internal combustion gasoline engine (and way better than the average, including idling and other inefficient operating conditions). Electric cars suffer from two additional conversions, each of which adds inefficiency, but it's not obvious to me that this overcomes the efficiency benefit from having a central power plant using fossil fuels more efficiently than in the auto. To me, it seems close enough that it takes actual analysis to determine the winner.
- merb 11y agoI hope for more electric companies and vehicle's. I'm from germany and I hope that our automotive's starts to waking up. especially after the vw scandal. fuel filled motors aren't the future. please american companies. create electric vehicles, lower the prices and start attacking our foolish overpriced german car manufacterers.
- genericacct 11y agoI think Toyota is very well positioned with their new €14K hybrid
- merb 11y agoa hybrid will change nothing and 14k€ for a car is fucking expensive, especially since the innovation there is nearly nothing. in over 20 years cars didn't get much love. and the design? cars looking more and more the same.
- marpstar 11y agoLooks like Robocop's helmet.
- phkahler 11y agoTesla's biggest competitor is the established auto industry. The guys need to stop listening to the folks who say its easy to start a car company. If hile there is some truth to that, its not with the investment. A billion dollars is a new platform, not a new company.
- williesleg 11y agoHooray! Shifting to Electric cars is good for everyone! Now for Electric Airplanes!
- rmason 11y agoMaybe because it's not in Silicon Valley and thus less well known but Detroit Electric has created a lot of PR locally about its plan to take on Tesla with a car out in 2016: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Electric https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Electric
- porsupah 11y agoElectrek offers up their own analysis of the fact soup: http://electrek.co/2015/10/26/teslas-biggest-competition-for-talent-might-not-be-apple-but-faraday-future-an-letv-backed-startup-in-los-angeles/ http://electrek.co/2015/10/26/teslas-biggest-competition-for...
- vatotemking 11y agoThis is good news. The more electric car companies we have, the better. Even Elon would like to see that happen.