- FX 5 and FX 6 would together span $20,000-$50,000 price range
- California EV maker has shipped prototypes from “collaboration partners” in China
- Would offer EVs with/without gasoline range-extenders; claims to be entering U.S. regulatory testing
Faraday Future plans to show prototypes of affordable electric vehicles at CES 2025, scheduled for Jan. 5-7 in Las Vegas.
The prototypes are part of a new sub-brand called FX (short for Faraday X) that Faraday outlined in a September investor presentation. At the time, the company said it was planning two models called FX 5 priced at $20,000-$30,000 and FX 6 priced at $30,000-$50,000. Both are also slated to be offered with fully electric and gasoline range-extended powertrains.
Those targeted prices are far below the current listed base price of $309,000 for Faraday’s only production model thus far, the FF 91 electric SUV. In contrast to the main brand, which Faraday has struggled to build itself, the FX sub-brand will be an asset-light operation—like the now-defunct Fisker—with limited marketing and an online-only sales model.
Faraday Future FF91 2.0 Futurist Alliance
Faraday said in a November press release that the FX prototypes were due to leave Beijing for Los Angeles, following up with another release on Dec. 19 confirming that they had reached U.S. shores. After CES, they’ll go to Faraday’s manufacturing facility in Hanford, California, for development work and testing, according to the company.
Faraday promised additional updates about the FX rollout at CES. The company previously said it was targeting a 2025 production start, subject to funding. In a Dec. 22 press release, Faraday claimed $30 million in new financing commitments from “certain institutional investors”—a small drop in the bucket for other automakers, but apparently enough to keep the now-scrappy EV maker going.
Faraday Future FF91
Faraday has a long-established record of turnover, abrupt strategy changes, and missed timelines. Former GM EV1 chief engineer Pete Savagian, more recently at Canoo, was the senior VP of Faraday Future up until 2018. He was one of several of Faraday’s initial core executives, as former CEO Jia Yueting held tight, to leave the company amid a relationship (and $2 billion lifeline) with Hong Kong based Evergrande gone sour.
Financial issues contributed to a drawn-out launch for the FF 91. It was first shown in production-bound prototype form at CES 2017, but the first customer example wasn’t delivered until August 2023. And that’s with what was intended as a low-volume flagship without the scaled-up volume Faraday is eyeing for the FX EVs.