Faraday Future FF91 launch
Discussion
Did anyone else see the launch yesterday?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38503987
There were a couple of toe-curlingly cringing moments and the whole thing was pretty awkward. I'm also not impressed by the look of the thing. But some attention-grabbing stats;
1,050hp
130kWh battery
0-60 2.39s
Range 382 miles
I'd love to see them succeed, if only to introduce some competition to Tesla, but I just can't see them getting this to mass-market I'm afraid.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38503987
There were a couple of toe-curlingly cringing moments and the whole thing was pretty awkward. I'm also not impressed by the look of the thing. But some attention-grabbing stats;
1,050hp
130kWh battery
0-60 2.39s
Range 382 miles
I'd love to see them succeed, if only to introduce some competition to Tesla, but I just can't see them getting this to mass-market I'm afraid.
The Register covered it, they are expecting "Half Life 3" first:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/04/faraday_fu...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/04/faraday_fu...
On the one hand, that's The Register for you, never knowingly positive.
On the other hand it's obviously nowhere near production ready. Producing a mock up (with no interior) for a tech show is one thing, fully developing the platform, meeting the relevant legislation and actually producing the thing economically is hard.
EVs (especially high performance ones) seem to be the new "lightweight British sports car" - plenty of optimistic start ups with backers but when it gets right down to it very few actually produce a viable product at the end.
Will be interesting to see how it pans out, but it does have the whiff of vapourware about it. I didn't see anything that would make me particularly want one over a Tesla.
On the other hand it's obviously nowhere near production ready. Producing a mock up (with no interior) for a tech show is one thing, fully developing the platform, meeting the relevant legislation and actually producing the thing economically is hard.
EVs (especially high performance ones) seem to be the new "lightweight British sports car" - plenty of optimistic start ups with backers but when it gets right down to it very few actually produce a viable product at the end.
Will be interesting to see how it pans out, but it does have the whiff of vapourware about it. I didn't see anything that would make me particularly want one over a Tesla.
grumbledoak said:
The Register covered it, they are expecting "Half Life 3" first:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/04/faraday_fu...
Well Duke Nukem Forever did come out, so there is hope http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/04/faraday_fu...
notThe company claims to have over 1400 people on staff
But some are sceptical
http://fortune.com/2016/11/15/faraday-future-facto...
"This is a Ponzi scheme," Nevada State Treasurer Dan Schwartz said in an interview Tuesday. "You have a new company that has never built a car, building a new plant in the middle of the desert, financed by a mysterious Chinese billionaire. At some point, as with Bernie Madoff, the game ends."
But some are sceptical
http://fortune.com/2016/11/15/faraday-future-facto...
"This is a Ponzi scheme," Nevada State Treasurer Dan Schwartz said in an interview Tuesday. "You have a new company that has never built a car, building a new plant in the middle of the desert, financed by a mysterious Chinese billionaire. At some point, as with Bernie Madoff, the game ends."
Why does it need so much HP?
I won't pretend to know about electric motors but in ICE engines, even though you may only need 50 hp to hold a cruise, the bigger, more powerful engine is probably going to use more fuel doing so. Is it the same with electric motors? With 130 kWh battery, I'd be find with 500 HP and the potential range increase.
I won't pretend to know about electric motors but in ICE engines, even though you may only need 50 hp to hold a cruise, the bigger, more powerful engine is probably going to use more fuel doing so. Is it the same with electric motors? With 130 kWh battery, I'd be find with 500 HP and the potential range increase.
Otispunkmeyer said:
Why does it need so much HP?
I won't pretend to know about electric motors but in ICE engines, even though you may only need 50 hp to hold a cruise, the bigger, more powerful engine is probably going to use more fuel doing so. Is it the same with electric motors? With 130 kWh battery, I'd be find with 500 HP and the potential range increase.
They just want to be able to say they are better than Tesla. Look at some of the figures - 0-60 in 2.39 secs. Tesla recently announced the Model S can do 0-60 in 2.4 secs.I won't pretend to know about electric motors but in ICE engines, even though you may only need 50 hp to hold a cruise, the bigger, more powerful engine is probably going to use more fuel doing so. Is it the same with electric motors? With 130 kWh battery, I'd be find with 500 HP and the potential range increase.
It will be interesting to see how many people put a deposit down on this car. You won't be able to believe those figures either though, I suspect.
How much of what was presented actually makes it into the car, or whether the car gets built at all, is debatable.
The launch car did have a complete interior, but they didn't show a close-up of it. Looked nice from a distance and they say that the read seats can recline to 60 degrees.
Fastest Tesla Model S is 2.5s 0-60 at the moment, so they're claiming just over .1s faster. That .1s will probably take about 150hp of the 1,050hp to achieve, given the diminishing returns achievable below 3s times.
I agree that no car needs 1,050hp and that you'd sacrifice acceleration for range at this point. The issue is, the power is a ny-product of the battery size, which is what's required for maximum range...so they go hand in hand. So you could reduce the hp output, but wouldn't increase the claimed range.
Given the press reports about the financial stability of their backer, the construction being halted on their factory and other rumours, I'd be very surprised if this ever gets into production, or lasts long after doing so. The history of automotive production is littered with the corpses of innovative manufacturers who underestimated the cost of getting to market. This applies even more so with EV's I'm afraid,
Fastest Tesla Model S is 2.5s 0-60 at the moment, so they're claiming just over .1s faster. That .1s will probably take about 150hp of the 1,050hp to achieve, given the diminishing returns achievable below 3s times.
I agree that no car needs 1,050hp and that you'd sacrifice acceleration for range at this point. The issue is, the power is a ny-product of the battery size, which is what's required for maximum range...so they go hand in hand. So you could reduce the hp output, but wouldn't increase the claimed range.
Given the press reports about the financial stability of their backer, the construction being halted on their factory and other rumours, I'd be very surprised if this ever gets into production, or lasts long after doing so. The history of automotive production is littered with the corpses of innovative manufacturers who underestimated the cost of getting to market. This applies even more so with EV's I'm afraid,
We increasingly hear new car companies announcing some amazing "game changing" product, but they pretty much all fail to realise that customers don't actually WANT a game changer. Then they make there second mistake of getting all caught up in the exciting stuff like 0-60 and POWER [/clarkson] and forget that those are the easy bits to do!
Car companies like VW for example make extremely good cars because they have been doing so for 60 years! Take the humble Golf, now in it's 8th (or is it ninth?) generation. It's a fantastically good car, not because it's a game changer, but because VW have had 9 gens and 40 years to work out how to best make that car. No one, and i mean No one, (see Mclaren Auto for example) brings out their first car and gets everything right first time.
Take the current Teslas. Yes, they are fast, and have a unique (increasingly less unique) powertrain, but actually, the rest of the car is really pretty average at best (poor handling, low quality interior, plain styling, etc) in fact, as a "car" i'd rate the Tesla's as being at a lower quality level than say a 3series BMW you can buy for half as much.
So FF comes brashly crashing into the market. Do you think VW et-al are worried? No, not in the slightest. They can easily make a comparable powertrain to FF, and yet they can make a car probably at least twice as good overall......
Personally, i give FF a 20% chance of any long term success.
Car companies like VW for example make extremely good cars because they have been doing so for 60 years! Take the humble Golf, now in it's 8th (or is it ninth?) generation. It's a fantastically good car, not because it's a game changer, but because VW have had 9 gens and 40 years to work out how to best make that car. No one, and i mean No one, (see Mclaren Auto for example) brings out their first car and gets everything right first time.
Take the current Teslas. Yes, they are fast, and have a unique (increasingly less unique) powertrain, but actually, the rest of the car is really pretty average at best (poor handling, low quality interior, plain styling, etc) in fact, as a "car" i'd rate the Tesla's as being at a lower quality level than say a 3series BMW you can buy for half as much.
So FF comes brashly crashing into the market. Do you think VW et-al are worried? No, not in the slightest. They can easily make a comparable powertrain to FF, and yet they can make a car probably at least twice as good overall......
Personally, i give FF a 20% chance of any long term success.
Max_Torque said:
Take the current Teslas. Yes, they are fast, and have a unique (increasingly less unique) powertrain, but actually, the rest of the car is really pretty average at best (poor handling, low quality interior, plain styling, etc) in fact, as a "car" i'd rate the Tesla's as being at a lower quality level than say a 3series BMW you can buy for half as much.
So FF comes brashly crashing into the market. Do you think VW et-al are worried? No, not in the slightest. They can easily make a comparable powertrain to FF, and yet they can make a car probably at least twice as good overall......
Personally, i give FF a 20% chance of any long term success.
I'm going to disagree with you on the points you've made re the Tesla, but only slightly. I'd say it is way above average generally (and almost all reviews would agree with me), with good handling, average quality interior and attractive styling, So FF comes brashly crashing into the market. Do you think VW et-al are worried? No, not in the slightest. They can easily make a comparable powertrain to FF, and yet they can make a car probably at least twice as good overall......
Personally, i give FF a 20% chance of any long term success.
I also suspect that VW and others are indeed worried by the rise of EV's in general, if not FF in particular. We're seeing a seismic shift in mass motoring technology and current market share counts for very little going forward. After all, Kodak were still selling 90% of photographic paper in 1998, ignored the threat of digital cameras and look where they ended up.
I however agree entirely with your estimate of FC's chance of success.
Lozrington said:
I also suspect that VW and others are indeed worried by the rise of EV's in general.
Worried? As i type this, VW, and the other major OEMs are spending something like £10B on EV platform cars for all there mainstream product lines.It's a LOT easier to add an EV powertrain into a decent car, than added a decent car to an EV powertrain!
Max_Torque said:
Lozrington said:
I also suspect that VW and others are indeed worried by the rise of EV's in general.
Worried? As i type this, VW, and the other major OEMs are spending something like £10B on EV platform cars for all there mainstream product lines.It's a LOT easier to add an EV powertrain into a decent car, than added a decent car to an EV powertrain!
My feeling is that if they try to compete merely by adding an EV power train to an existing platform, they'll fail miserably. Successful EV tech requires a holistic approach to vehicle design, eg what BMW have done with their i3 & i8. Electric versions of the Golf etc will just not be good enough to convert the masses to the new tech.
Lozrington said:
Max_Torque said:
Lozrington said:
I also suspect that VW and others are indeed worried by the rise of EV's in general.
Worried? As i type this, VW, and the other major OEMs are spending something like £10B on EV platform cars for all there mainstream product lines.It's a LOT easier to add an EV powertrain into a decent car, than added a decent car to an EV powertrain!
My feeling is that if they try to compete merely by adding an EV power train to an existing platform, they'll fail miserably. Successful EV tech requires a holistic approach to vehicle design, eg what BMW have done with their i3 & i8. Electric versions of the Golf etc will just not be good enough to convert the masses to the new tech.
FF91 is still vaporware though
Lozrington said:
Max_Torque said:
Lozrington said:
I also suspect that VW and others are indeed worried by the rise of EV's in general.
Worried? As i type this, VW, and the other major OEMs are spending something like £10B on EV platform cars for all there mainstream product lines.It's a LOT easier to add an EV powertrain into a decent car, than added a decent car to an EV powertrain!
My feeling is that if they try to compete merely by adding an EV power train to an existing platform, they'll fail miserably. Successful EV tech requires a holistic approach to vehicle design, eg what BMW have done with their i3 & i8. Electric versions of the Golf etc will just not be good enough to convert the masses to the new tech.
What Tesla have done is to help push forward the mass adoption of EVs, shortening the time to "critical mass". The existing OEMs have spotted this, and responded by starting a huge number of "Crash programs" to bring EV technology to their fleet in the shortest timescale possible. However, the major OEMs are geared up to do this, it is what they do. Before a platform has even reached its first customers, they PD team will be starting on the development of the next Model Year. As battery energy density and battery cost falls, the tech becomes less critical to having to sit in a custom EV design (ie ultra low roadload, large battery volume).
Otispunkmeyer said:
Why does it need so much HP?
I won't pretend to know about electric motors but in ICE engines, even though you may only need 50 hp to hold a cruise, the bigger, more powerful engine is probably going to use more fuel doing so. Is it the same with electric motors? With 130 kWh battery, I'd be find with 500 HP and the potential range increase.
In simple terms:I won't pretend to know about electric motors but in ICE engines, even though you may only need 50 hp to hold a cruise, the bigger, more powerful engine is probably going to use more fuel doing so. Is it the same with electric motors? With 130 kWh battery, I'd be find with 500 HP and the potential range increase.
High power electric motors don't bleed energy like high power ICE motors. A 1000 ICE will have poor fuel consumption no matter how you drive it.
An Electric motor is very efficient so it you need 50bhp for a steady cruise, it will consume around 50bhp regardless of the peak power it can deliver.
The Tesla Model S variants all have similar economy in like for like driving. The difference will come in when you use the additional power for acceleration.
98elise said:
In simple terms:
High power electric motors don't bleed energy like high power ICE motors. A 1000 ICE will have poor fuel consumption no matter how you drive it.
An Electric motor is very efficient so it you need 50bhp for a steady cruise, it will consume around 50bhp regardless of the peak power it can deliver.
The Tesla Model S variants all have similar economy in like for like driving. The difference will come in when you use the additional power for acceleration.
Building on this, the bigger the battery array, the power that can be delivered by these cars is generally constrained by battery. It's pretty much the only reason why a tesla 90D is faster than a 60D as the motors are identical. FF have quoted the biggest battery. High power electric motors don't bleed energy like high power ICE motors. A 1000 ICE will have poor fuel consumption no matter how you drive it.
An Electric motor is very efficient so it you need 50bhp for a steady cruise, it will consume around 50bhp regardless of the peak power it can deliver.
The Tesla Model S variants all have similar economy in like for like driving. The difference will come in when you use the additional power for acceleration.
Edited by Heres Johnny on Saturday 20th May 07:34
Noticed this article talking about test cars etc
http://uk.businessinsider.com/faraday-future-ff91-...
And video
https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/8/15584360/faraday...
http://uk.businessinsider.com/faraday-future-ff91-...
And video
https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/8/15584360/faraday...
I wonder if this path to full production will really turn out as set out here
https://www.ff.com/us/press-room/new-financing/
https://www.ff.com/us/press-room/new-financing/
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