Faraday Future, a start-up company with investments by Chinese tycoon Jia Yueting, unveiled its first commercial vehicle FF91 Tuesday night, and claiming to be "the fastest accelerating electric car in the world."
"Once you use FF91, you can get rid of your old cars in the garage," Jia concluded at the press conference two days before the official inauguration of 2017 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, one of the world's largest global consumer technology exhibitions, saying that the self-driving car was a milestone in a new era of mobility.
The car is equipped with a strong battery pack which could offer 130 kilowatt-hour energy and 1,050 horsepower, Peter Savagian, Faraday's vice president of propulsion engineering, told an audience of 600, adding that the car could go 378 miles (638.82 km) without a charge and run from 0 to 60 miles per hour (0 to 101.4 kilometers per hour) in 2.39 seconds.
"No other electric vehicle can do that," he said.
Savagian showed a pre-recorded video of a camouflaged car outracing a top-of-the-line Tesla Model X, a Bentley Rentyaga and a Ferrari 488GTB; the car turned out to be the FF91.
However, in FF says speed was just one of the key factors reflecting the company's achievements in reconstructing the auto industry.
Nick Sampson, the company's senior vice president of research, development and engineering, touted FF91 had the capability of keeping its drivers and passengers connected to their digital lives, such as accessing their favorite apps, audio files and watching sports games.
Hong Bae, FF's director of self-driving, called the car "the smartest car you will ever drive." A driverless valet feature could prove helpful. "If you hate parking, simply get out of the vehicle, press a button on the Faraday mobile app, the car will go parking itself," Hong said.
Bae presented a live demo of a FF91 driving itself around a parking lot and rolling back into an empty space, but when Jia tried to demonstrate the function on the stage in front of the audience, the car failed to work.
"Ok, it seems like it's a little bit lazy tonight," Sampson said of the embarrassing moment before the car responded to a second attempt.
On Tuesday's event, FF announced that the new car could be pre-ordered via its official website with a 5,000-U.S. dollar fully refundable deposit and could be delivered in 2018.
BBC quoted Gartner automotive analyst Mike Ramsay as saying that due to the car having a 130kWh battery pack, which is 30 percent larger than Tesla's biggest model, the price could be "extremely expensive."
