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Will Faraday Future’s FF 91 ever see production without a factory?
Faraday Future finally took the wraps off its planned production car, named FF 91, last night at CES 2017. What the public finally saw was a low slung, four passenger crossover style vehicle that is intended to compete with the Tesla Model X.
The California-based electric car startup says the car will utilize an industry leading 130 kWh battery that’s capable of driving 378 miles on a single charge. Powered by three electric motors — one in front and two at the rear — FF 91’s all wheel drive system will be capable of blasting off a 0-60 mph time of 2.39 seconds, making it the world’s quickest electric vehicle.
The battery, which Faraday Future claims has the highest energy density in the industry, is supplied by LG Chem. Pete Savagian, vice president of propulsion engineering at Faraday, says the FF 91 is equipped for 200 kW fast charging and can charge at a rate of 500 miles per hour.
The rear doors are hinged at the rear to provide ease of access to the interior. The doors are fitted with radar sensors that protect them from damage from cars or objects parked nearby. Those sensors also are part of the advanced self-driving system built into the car. Rear seating is said to be spacious and sumptuous.
Those are the specs but specs don’t sell cars. People buy on emotion and justify their decision later with facts. The FF 91 is an emotional car in a way that the equally capable Lucid Air is not. The Lucid sedan looks like a very nice Audi. That’s not a bad thing; it just means it doesn’t have a lot of visual excitement. No car appeals to every taste, of course, but the FF 91 does have curb appeal. It is visually attractive and mimics the body lines of BMW’s i3 and i8 — thoroughly modern without being too bizarre.
Richard Kim, Faraday Future’s head of design, says much of the car was designed using virtual reality technology. “If you want to have the most progressive, forward thinking vehicle design, you have to have use the most progressive and forward thinking methodologies,” Kim told Automotive News during a tour of the company’s headquarters in Gardena, California late last year.
Faraday Future says owners will be assigned an FFID — a personal identification code that will allow any Faraday Future car to configure itself to the personal preferences of the owner. That raises a significant point. Will there ever be enough Faraday Future cars on the road to make FFID relevant? The company is said to have serious financial difficulties. Work on its factory in North Las Vegas has been shut down for almost two months and senior company executives have left the company in the past few weeks.
Not to worry, Nick Sampson, senior vice president of R&D and engineering, told the audience Tuesday night in Las Vegas. Brimming with confidence, he assured those in attendance that Faraday Future is in the middle of a “multifaceted disruption” that will “reformat the auto industry.” Then he added, “Despite all the naysayers and the skeptics, we will persist,” before adding that the company’s “clean sheet” gives it an advantage over traditional automakers. Maybe so. But with the first cars scheduled to be delivered in 2018 and no factory yet in existence, there are plenty of skeptics.
Are Faraday Future and the FF 91 ready for prime time? Interested parties can reserve a car now or pay a $5,000 fee to secure a “priority reservation” for one of 300 “Alliance Edition” cars. With the company teetering on the edge of financial collapse, the CES reveal is seen by many as a Hail Mary event. If the reaction to the FF 91 is positive, new investors may be brought on board. But without fresh funds, it is hard to see how the company can survive long enough to be part of CES 2018.
Elon Musk
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
“And when I announced DGX-1, nobody in the world wanted it. I had no purchase orders, not one. Nobody wanted to buy it. Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon.”
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast on Wednesday and commended Tesla CEO Elon Musk for his early belief in what is now the most valuable company in the world.
Huang and Musk are widely regarded as two of the greatest tech entrepreneurs of the modern era, with the two working in conjunction as NVIDIA’s chips are present in Tesla vehicles, particularly utilized for self-driving technology and data collection.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang regrets not investing more in Elon Musk’s xAI
Both CEOs defied all odds and created companies from virtually nothing. Musk joined Tesla in the early 2000s before the company had even established any plans to build a vehicle. Jensen created NVIDIA in the booth of a Denny’s restaurant, which has been memorialized with a plaque.
On the JRE episode, Rogan asked about Jensen’s relationship with Elon, to which the NVIDIA CEO said that Musk was there when nobody else was:
“I was lucky because I had known Elon Musk, and I helped him build the first computer for Model 3, the Model S, and when he wanted to start working on an autonomous vehicle. I helped him build the computer that went into the Model S AV system, his full self-driving system. We were basically the FSD computer version 1, and so we were already working together.
And when I announced DGX-1, nobody in the world wanted it. I had no purchase orders, not one. Nobody wanted to buy it. Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon.
He goes ‘You know what, I have a company that could really use this.’ I said, Wow, my first customer. And he goes, it’s an AI company, and it’s a nonprofit and and we could really use one of these supercomputers. I boxed one up, I drove it up to San Francisco, and I delivered it to the Elon in 2016.”
The first DGX-1 AI supercomputer was delivered personally to Musk when he was with OpenAI, which provided crucial early compute power for AI research, accelerating breakthroughs in machine learning that underpin modern tools like ChatGPT.
Tesla’s Nvidia purchases could reach $4 billion this year: Musk
The long-term alliance between NVIDIA and Tesla has driven over $2 trillion in the company’s market value since 2016.
Elon Musk
GM CEO Mary Barra says she told Biden to give Tesla and Musk EV credit
“He was crediting me, and I said, ‘Actually, I think a lot of that credit goes to Elon and Tesla…You know me, Andrew. I don’t want to take credit for things.”
General Motors CEO Mary Barra said in a new interview on Wednesday that she told President Joe Biden to credit Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, for the widespread electric vehicle transition.
She said she told Biden this after the former President credited her and GM for leading EV efforts in the United States.
During an interview at the New York Times Dealbook Summit with Andrew Ross Sorkin, Barra said she told Biden that crediting her was essentially a mistake, and that Musk and Tesla should have been explicitly mentioned (via Business Insider):
“He was crediting me, and I said, ‘Actually, I think a lot of that credit goes to Elon and Tesla…You know me, Andrew. I don’t want to take credit for things.”
GM CEO Mary Barra said to Andrew Sorkin at the New York Times Dealbook Summit that she pulled President Biden aside and said Tesla CEO @elonmusk deserved the credit for EVs:
“He was crediting me, and I said, ‘Actually, I think a lot of that credit goes to Elon and Tesla,’” Barra… pic.twitter.com/OHBTG1QfbJ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) December 3, 2025
Back in 2021, President Biden visited GM’s “Factory Zero” plant in Detroit, which was the centerpiece of the company’s massive transition to EVs. The former President went on to discuss the EV industry, and claimed that GM and Barra were the true leaders who caused the change:
“In the auto industry, Detroit is leading the world in electric vehicles. You know how critical it is? Mary, I remember talking to you way back in January about the need for America to lead in electric vehicles. I can remember your dramatic announcement that by 2035, GM would be 100% electric. You changed the whole story, Mary. You did, Mary. You electrified the entire automotive industry. I’m serious. You led, and it matters.”
People were baffled by the President’s decision to highlight GM and Barra, and not Tesla and Musk, who truly started the transition to EVs. GM, Ford, and many other companies only followed in the footsteps of Tesla after it started to take market share from them.
Elon Musk and Tesla try to save legacy automakers from Déjà vu
Musk would eventually go on to talk about Biden’s words later on:
“They have so much power over the White House that they can exclude Tesla from an EV Summit. And, in case the first thing, in case that wasn’t enough, then you have President Biden with Mary Barra at a subsequent event, congratulating Mary for having led the EV revolution.”
In Q4 2021, which was shortly after Biden’s comments, Tesla delivered 300,000 EVs. GM delivered just 26.
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Tesla Full Self-Driving shows confident navigation in heavy snow
So far, from what we’ve seen, snow has not been a huge issue for the most recent Full Self-Driving release. It seems to be acting confidently and handling even snow-covered roads with relative ease.
Tesla Full Self-Driving is getting its first taste of Winter weather for late 2025, as snow is starting to fall all across the United States.
The suite has been vastly improved after Tesla released v14 to many owners with capable hardware, and driving performance, along with overall behavior, has really been something to admire. This is by far the best version of FSD Tesla has ever released, and although there are a handful of regressions with each subsequent release, they are usually cleared up within a week or two.
Tesla is releasing a modified version of FSD v14 for Hardware 3 owners: here’s when
However, adverse weather conditions are something that Tesla will have to confront, as heavy rain, snow, and other interesting situations are bound to occur. In order for the vehicles to be fully autonomous, they will have to go through these scenarios safely and accurately.
One big issue I’ve had, especially in heavy rain, is that the camera vision might be obstructed, which will display messages that certain features’ performance might be degraded.
So far, from what we’ve seen, snow has not been a huge issue for the most recent Full Self-Driving release. It seems to be acting confidently and handling even snow-covered roads with relative ease:
FSD 14.1.4 snow storm Ontario Canada pic.twitter.com/jwK1dLYT0w
— Everything AI (@mrteslaspace) November 17, 2025
I found the steepest, unplowed hill in my area and tested the following:
• FSD 14.2.1 on summer tires
• FSD 14.2.1 on winter tires
• Manual drivingBut I think the most impressive part was how FSD went DOWN the hill. FSD in the snow is sublime $TSLA pic.twitter.com/YMcN7Br3PU
— Dillon Loomis (@DillonLoomis) December 2, 2025
Well.. I couldn’t let the boys have all the fun!
Threw the GoPro up and decided to FSD v14.2.1 in the snow. Roads were not compacted like the other day, a little slippery, but overall doable at lower speeds. Enjoy the video and holiday music 🎶
Liked:
Took turns super slow… pic.twitter.com/rIAIeh3Zu3— 🦋Diana🦋 (@99_Colorado) December 3, 2025
Moving into the winter months, it will be very interesting to see how FSD handles even more concerning conditions, especially with black ice, freezing rain and snow mix, and other things that happen during colder conditions.
We are excited to test it ourselves, but I am waiting for heavy snowfall to make it to Pennsylvania so I can truly push it to the limit.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
GM CEO Mary Barra says she told Biden to give Tesla and Musk EV credit
