By the time I arrived at the ninth floor of a shopping mall parking garage abutting Los Angeles’ Skid Row, I knew this wasn’t going to be a normal car reveal. Faraday Future is not a normal company. The company defines itself by its “Co-Creation Strategy” and its focus on “AI EVs.”
So this debut was not a typical nuts-and-bolts affair. It was a surreal rooftop party, replete with a mocktail bar and a cast of hundreds of influencers, both paid and unpaid.
But the spectacle was far from the weirdest bit. No, that came when the company revealed the Faraday X Super One, billed by company officials as the “disruptor of the Cadillac Escalade in the EAI EV era.”
Frankly, I didn’t even know we were in the EAI EV era, so let’s get caught up. What is the Faraday X Super One, and what’s the deal with the company building it?
Photo by: Faraday Future
What Is Faraday Future, and Faraday X?
Faraday X is the new, more accessibly priced sub-brand of Faraday Future. If you know Faraday Future, you may know the company has a weird history. It unveiled its first product, the FF 91, at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2017. The company promised over 1,000 horsepower, 378 miles of range and Level 4, eyes-off autonomous driving. It was supposed to go into production in 2018.
Seven years later, the company has delivered about 16 FF 91s, per Autoweek. It seems to be sold primarily to “Co-Creators,” or paid spokespeople for the company, making the situation more confusing. Has the company sold cars to cash-paying customers? It’s not clear.
The company has been accused of fudging sales in court, but denies wrongdoing, per TechCrunch. It also made big promises about a giant factory in Nevada, for which it received subsidies to build. That never materialized, leading the state’s treasurer to call Faraday Future a “Ponzi scheme,” according to Fortune.
With so many grand ambitions and so little to show for it, Faraday Future has so far felt like a company that primarily traffics in hype.
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Source: Mack Hogan/InsideEVs
The leadership of the company has also undergone some shakeups. Its founder, Jia Yueting, also known as YT Jia, built his fortune at the helm of Chinese tech company LeEco. But he has faced considerable issues with his personal debt. He filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. in 2019, but was under pressure from debtors in mainland China for long after that, leading to some issues for the business.
Then, earlier this week, Jia and Faraday Future President Jerry Wang received Wells Notices from the Securities and Exchange Commission, as TechCrunch reported. These notices state that, after a three-year investigation into alleged wrongdoing surrounding 2021 Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) merger, the SEC’s internal investigators are recommending an enforcement action against the company, which could lead to further legal and financial burdens.
The first Faraday Future FF 91 production vehicle was delivered in 2023.
It is all a confounding mess. The high-level summary is: Take Faraday’s promises with a grain of salt. Much appears to be up in the air.
What Is The Faraday X Super One?
The Faraday X Super One is, according to the company, the world’s first “EAI MPV” and “AI Hybrid Extended Range Vehicle” or “AI HER.” It is also the first U.S. market vehicle to feature the “Super EAI F.A.C.E.”-front “AI communication ecosystem.”
Photo by: Faraday Future
All of this is to say that it’s an electric or hybrid minivan with a big-ass screen on the front grille. It is essentially a Chinese- or Japanese- style luxury people carrier, available with giant, massaging recliner and a pillar-to-pillar television for rear-seat passengers. Its goal, the company says, is to capture the VIP transportation market in the U.S., with a coddling, sophisticated van that outflanks the Escalade on its own turf.
The Faraday X Super One will be available as both a hybrid and an EV, but details are scarce.
Photo by: Faraday Future
To do that, the Super One will have a variety of AI features accessible through a digital AI agent that company representatives claim has a “soul.” But no details are yet available about what exactly that AI agent will do. Faraday X claims it will get to know you and enable your work, but their last attempt to demonstrate their AI to me was… unimpressive. Also, the Faraday X event came with an extraordinary disclaimer at the top.
“The company plans to gradually implement all functions after mass production,” John Schilling, director of public relations for Faraday Future, told the audience. The translation is: Don’t expect any of this to work when you get the vehicle.
Photo by: Faraday Future
The company has also not publicly announced when exactly that will be. Schilling told InsideEVs that Faraday wants to start production next year, but it needs to ready the Hanford, CA facility, where it builds the FF 91. Schilling claimed the factory can produce 10,000 vehicles a year, but given that we’ve seen fewer than 20 FF 91 deliveries, that number feels ambitious.
Schilling also confirmed to InsideEVs that the Super One is based on an existing van, but would not say which one. We do know that it’s based on a Chinese-market MPV.
InsideEVs’ resident China expert Kevin Williams says it’s likely a Wey Gaoshan, which is made by Great Wall Motors.
He also notes that GWM doesn’t have a great reputation for making competitive vehicles in that segment.
The screen on the front of the Super One displayed visible color banding, though this photo was shot in low light. The company confirmed to InsideEVs that the display won’t work while driving, despite marketing photos that show it driving with the display on.
Photo by: Faraday Future
That being said, I got a brief ride around a parking lot in the back of the Super One, and its interior looked fantastic. We weren’t able to sit up front or touch any of the software, but the seats themselves and the ambience of the cabin were both impressive. Sadly, details on range, power, engine size and pricing are all still to come.
“It’s gonna be less than a Cadillac Escalade,” Schilling told InsideEVs.
This is the interior of the flagship Zeekr 009, a Chinese-market van. The Super One’s interior isn’t this nice, but the idea is the same.
Photo by: Zeekr
Verdict: Is This Real?
I happen to think there is a real market in the U.S. for electric and hybrid ultra-luxury vans. For vehicles that primarily move rich people around in cities, vans just make more sense than SUVs. Their space-efficient proportions allow for bigger, comfier seats with low, flat floors.
That’s why Schilling says they want to sell these things to executive transportation fleets. After all, luxury vans have already taken off in Asia. They’re working their way into Europe. Mercedes is getting in the game. It’s truly only a matter of time before someone capitalizes on that market here.
But I’m skeptical that it will be Faraday Future. The company just secured another $105 million in funding, and is now planning to open a factory in the United Arab Emirates, both signs meant to show staying power and long-term commitment.
“We never give up,” Jia told the audience.
Yet with many of its outstanding promises unfulfilled, and with authorities in both the U.S. and China seemingly skeptical of Jia, it’s hard to believe that Faraday Future is one year away from transforming the VIP transportation market. Rich clients want luxury, sure, but they also want status. They want the appearance of wealth and sophistication. When a company is perhaps better known for its regulatory drama and the personal debts of its CEO, it’s hard to imagine its product signaling the right things to these buyers.
On the other hand, with another hundred million bucks, maybe the company can make it work. It claimed to get over 10,000 pre-orders within the first hour. Plus, Faraday had no shortage of seemingly successful LA influencers on hand. It has proven, then, that it can pay successful people to care about its product.
The next part is harder: Getting successful people to actually pay for its product.
Contact the author: Mack.Hogan@insideevs.com.
