Totally real car company Faraday Future is pushing back the start of production and delivered of its long-awaited debut car – the FF91 crossover. The company now says that since it’s short on cash, the FF91 will be delayed to the “third or fourth quarter of 2022,” according to Bloomberg.
The company had once slated the crossover to launch as soon as this month, which obviously isn’t happening. To make things worse, Faraday had initially promised to be making and selling FF91s by early 2018, but due to being short on cash that obviously never came to fruition, either.
As Jean-Ralphio and Mona-Lisa said on Parks and Recreation, “Money, please!”
“The company needs additional cash to commercially launch the FF 91 and is currently seeking to raise additional capital to fund its operations through December 31, 2022,” Faraday said in a filing on Monday.
Bloomberg reports this is contrary to past statements the company has made, saying it would not need additional funds until after the FF 91 is launched. However, it now seems the company is looking to raise about $325 million – which is substantially more than zero money.
This delay comes amid a stalemate between the company itself and the man who founded it, Jia Yueting.
In late June, a shareholder group affiliated with him demanded the removal of a director from the startup’s board.
Faraday pushed back, saying the group had offered the director a contract worth up to $700,000 in order for him to resign.
On July 15, those shareholders said in a filing that they had offered Faraday a lifeline of “at least $100 million” on the condition that the director resign.
Several days later, the group accused the startup of not treating the offer “with the gravity, urgency and fairness it deserves in light of” its financial condition.
On top of all this, in just the past year the company has been subpoenaed by the SEC and it was caught inflating the numbers of preorders it had. As of our report on May 26th, there were just 401 preorders for the FF 91.
That’s not very many!
It’s anyone’s guess as to what will happen next for Faraday Future, but one thing is for sure: it’s going to be an uphill battle. Maybe we’ll start seeing FF 91s getting delivered to customers. Maybe my hair will stop graying. Maybe enough people will be interested in the EV crossover to actually make the money they need to raise worthwhile. Maybe I’ll win the lottery. The point is: nobody knows what the (Faraday) future holds.