YT Jia’s electric vehicle factory opens in US, recruiting in Beijing, Shanghai
YT Jia’s car manufacturing business has made new progress.
Faraday Future, an electric vehicle startup backed by LeEco founder YT Jia, announced the opening of its factory in Hanford, California. Photos revealed that the factory is already operating with some personnel and mechanical equipment.
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Faraday Future (FF) is promoting the production of its first mass-produced model, the FF 91. At the supplier meeting in February this year, YT Jia, FF’s principal investor and founder, announced that FF had received $1.5 billion in funding to meet the capital requirements of the IPO and that the FF 91 would be delivered by the end of 2018.
Earlier media reports said that with a 130 kWh battery, the FF 91 can make an uninterrupted 700 km (435 mile) trip. It only takes 2.39 seconds to accelerate to 100 kph (62 mph), and its price may be more than 2 million yuan ($315,740).
Faraday Future originally planned to build its own plant in Nevada, but, constrained by funding, it rented an existing plant in Hanford, California instead to speed up the production process. In December 2017, a paper.cn journalist visited Faraday Future factory to find it still vacant. Now, the plant finally started operation.
Guangzhou-based Ruichi Intelligent Automobile Co., Ltd., Faraday Future’s affiliated company, may also be involved in a public bidding for a site in Nansha, Guangzhou. The official website of Guangzhou Nansha Land Resources and Planning Bureau showed an announcement for a plot (number: 2018 NGY-2) covering an area of 400,988 square meters (99 acres) whose bidding price starts from 364.1 million yuan ($57.5 million). The bidding requirement stated that “the bidder shall introduce a pure electric vehicle assembly project with world-class pure electric vehicle development and manufacturing within one month of winning the bid.”
Faraday Future was established at the end of last year, implementing a China-U.S. dual headquarters strategy. Since then, Faraday Future has been recruiting talents in China. Its official WeChat account has posted five consecutive recruitment notices for work mainly in Beijing and Shanghai, that is, the original office of LeTV. The positions include professional engineers in chassis, electronic and electrical appliances, body and exterior decoration, vehicle control, vehicle integration, electric drive and charging, battery system, trial production and other related fields, as well as HR, financial staff, government affairs, legal and administrative staff.
