Ever since Faraday Future unveiled its Batmobile-like, battery-powered FFZERO1 concept car at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, car enthusiasts have been waiting for a model they could actually drive without causing traffic to stop.
The FFZERO1, unveiled in January, offers a sleek, futuristic design which boasts features including a steering wheel with a smartphone dock and “zero gravity” seating to increase comfort for drivers. It looked cool as hell, but it didn’t exactly scream practicality. While concept cars are more representative of future ambitions than an actual consumer product, from what we can see in the video, the vehicle Faraday is set to reveal in 2017 looks like it could be on the street today.
Faraday’s main competitor, Tesla, prides itself on merging form and functionality, so it’s important for Faraday to deliver something that you could conceivably take the kids to a soccer game in.
This week, they finally got glimpse of that car with a 15-second video of the still-camouflaged prototype that offered this drive-by shot:
Compare that to the initial shots of the Batmobile concept car.
The Faraday concept car unveiled in January at CES.
The Faraday Video offers more clues about the car’s wheel-mounted motor system with its title, “Reinvent The Wheel.”
The prototype, however, appears more like a sedan than the car of the future. An earlier video about the modular chassis of the vehicle also gave EV enthusiasts a sense of the car’s skeleton:
The concept for the FFZERO1 includes an extendable base.
Despite a disappointing prototype, there’s still a strong chance that Faraday could offer competitive advantages over brands like Tesla. The company has promised that the FFZERO1 is equipped with a 1,000 horsepower engine and will move at a top speed of 200 mph — that’s basically as fast as the Tesla Model 3.
Faraday’s Vice President of Marketing Dag Reckhorn has also boasted the vehicle will give buyers a “20 or 30 percent battery range over the competitor.” The company announced in October it would partner with LG Chem, one of the largest lithium-ion battery makers in the world, to make batteries for the vehicle.
Of course, there’s also a chance that the car will never make it to market. Faraday’s main-backer, China’s LeEco, is reportedly running out of money, causing hesitation from the Nevada government to extend the company funds.
