Tesla has been the biggest all-electric automaker for years, but it’s far from the only company with skin in the game. One of its competitors, the secretive and mysterious Faraday Future, unveiled its first concept car in dramatic fashion yesterday in Las Vegas, at the annual Consumer Electronics Show. The car has little bearing on what Faraday’s eventual production vehicles will look like, but it sure is impressive.
The supercar, dubbed FFZero1, shares design language with autos in the same league from Ferrari, Lamborghini and Bugatti, but has a distinct modernist flair that almost puts it closer to something from the pages of a Batman comic. FFZero1’s showstopping statistic is the claim it can reach up to 1,000 horsepower, a whopping amount of power for any car let alone one without an internal combustion engine. Faraday’s supercar also features a few innovative construction ideas, such as endless tunnels that allow air to flow through the car, cooling batteries and improving aerodynamics. The feature not only helps with speed, but, theoretically, range as well.
In an interview with CNNMoney, Faraday Future’s Head of Global Design Richard Kim noted the company is working toward full autonomy, a step Tesla made more feasible late in 2015 when it rolled out its Autopilot feature. Kim was also careful to say the FFZero1 is, while definitely a concept vehicle, not a throwaway.
“We’re still focusing on our first production car, but this [FFZero1] is an ongoing study. This is not a random sculpture, this is a serious project that we’re doing in parallel to our regular work,” he said.
Faraday Future plans to have a production car on the road in the next few years.