Faraday Future is partnering with a computer games company called The9 to produce electric cars for the Chinese market.
The California-based Faraday Future says it has signed a joint venture agreement with The9 to form a joint venture to manufacture, market, distribute, and sell “luxury intelligent electric vehicles” in China.
This also marks a key first step for FF to officially launch its dual-home-market and dual-brand strategy in both China and the US.
Both FF and The9 say they are “confident in the outlook of China’s new energy mobility industry”.
The joint venture’s immediate objective is to exclusively manufacture, market, distribute, and sell Faraday Future’s new brand V9 model, a flagship luxury electric vehicle model designed and developed by FF. Other future models could be created with additional agreements.
The9 is a renowned internet company based in China, listed on Nasdaq since 2004 with over a decade of experience in both the Internet industry as well as capital markets.
The9’s experienced international team and its familiarity with the US capital markets will help to establish a global team for the joint venture’s management and operations.
Moreover, the joint venture will be able to leverage The9’s industry reputation and existing business intelligence for the joint venture’s marketing implementation, especially in China.
FF says this is “only the beginning” of a series of strategic actions for the company, all designed to support the completion and launch of its “new species of vehicle mobility” FF 91 EV in 2019 and continue development of the mass-market premium FF 81 under its dual-home-market and dual-brand strategy in both the US as well as China.
FF continues to make steady progress in the US on the ultra-luxury FF 91 flagship, readying it for final production later this year. FF will work on establishing a team of integrated global R&D employees to support its already robust vendor and supply chain.
Under the joint venture agreement, The9 will make capital contributions of up to $600 million to the JV, and FF will make in-kind contributions to the joint venture, including FF’s use rights to a piece of land located in China for luxury electric vehicle manufacturing and an exclusive license to manufacture, market, distribute and sell Faraday Future’s new brand V9 model and potentially other select future car models in China.
The expected annual production capacity of the joint venture is 300,000 cars, and the first pre-production car is expected to roll off the production line in 2020.
Jun Zhu, CEO of The9, says: “We are very pleased to see The9, an Internet company with more than a decade of industry experience, to partner with FF, a high-tech internet mobility company, to bring high-quality luxury electric vehicles to the Chinese marketplace.
“FF has the industry leading product technology and strategies, and a team of world-class top talents and resources. Leveraging the technology capabilities of FF, we believe our alliance with FF provides us with a great opportunity to pursue the fast-growing market of electric vehicles in China.
“We look forward to a long and successful relationship with FF and we honor this step to diversify our business portfolio as a high-tech Internet company.”
YT Jia, FF founder and CEO, says: “We are very grateful for this opportunity as it shows the recognition of FF’s product technology from the9.
“I believe that FF’s strategic vision and product concept will be perfectly integrated with the Internet and user operation genes of the9 to realize the smooth operation of FF flagship products in China.”
“As a California-based ultra-luxury intelligent mobility brand, FF has hundreds of proprietary patents, along with more than 1,000 industry patents currently in process, in both China and the United States.
“We are committed to be part of the future of the growing Chinese EV mobility market. Through the establishment of the joint venture, we are able to implement our dual-home-market and dual-brand strategy and achieve our strategic goal of introducing our new luxury EV brand in China.”
With The9’s first installment of capital into the joint venture, the establishment of the joint venture will help FF to overcome its short-term cash flow difficulties and support its ongoing equity financing efforts.
FF’s first FF 91 pre-production car was delivered last August at its manufacturing facility in Hanford, California, the company’s production site in the US.
Currently, multiple pre-production vehicles are undergoing rigorous testing and validation processes, with the goal of final delivery later this year.
