As an announcement that a new EV manufacturer has arrived, Faraday Future’s (FF) FFZERO1 concept is a pretty good one. The showstopping concept has been launched at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas on Monday 4th January with lightweight and high-tech construction and 1,000 hp.
Although an extreme example of an EV, the FFZERO1 concept does at least showcase a number of practical technologies due to make their way onto future production models. For example, it is based on FF’s new Variable Platform Architecture (VPA) that has been designed to accomodate electric powertrains and to be flexible enough to underpin a range of different models.
The company has looked carefully at lightweight composite construction techniques and advanced awrodynamics too in an attempt to maximise range. That range hasn’t been announced but FF has revealed that its models will use strings of batteries rather than one large unit. FF reckons that this makes the car safer, easier to maintain and more flexible to manufacture as single strings can be added, removed or changed rather than working with one battery.
Performance times are quoted at a sub-3 second 0-60mph time which is likely to remain to combat the Tesla rivals. A 200+mph figure is likely to be toned down though with a range of at least 300 miles important to take on both the Teslas and forthcoming models from Porsche and Audi.
The company looks set to be one of the handful that make it from automotive start-up to established manufacturer following in the footsteps of Tesla in that regard. FF will start work on building a £680 million factory near Las Vegas in the coming weeks and has engaged a number of former Tesla and BMW i Cars employees to give the firm solid foundations.
