A new electric car company has revved up Apple Car conspiracy theorists who think the mysterious automaker may actually be a shell company for Apple’s automotive ambitions.
Faraday Future has already pulled in $1 billion in investments and is stocking up on top Tesla talent (just like Apple), but little else is known about the new company that currently boasts over 400 employees with plans to add 100 more of the best automotive engineers and designers in the world before the end of the year.
Take a look at the rendering of their future car:
Photo: Faraday Future
Faraday’s roster includes former Tesla employees who have served as director of vehicle & chassis engineering, director of manufacturing, and vice president of supply chain. They also sniped BMW’s founding member and lead designer of the i3 and i8 concepts.
Launching a secret shell company to covertly promote a new product isn’t Apple’s style, so I highly doubt there’s a connection. In fact, the LA Times claims the Faraday brand is tied to Chinese billion Jia Yueting, who’s looking to back up his huge ambitions with the $7 billion he made founding the company Leshi Internet Information & Technology.
A vendor working with the company in Gardena told The Times that Faraday hasn’t made any secret of its origin or its plans.
“They told us right off that this is China’s response to Tesla,” said the vendor, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for Faraday.
It looks like Faraday Future is definitely not related to Apple in any way, but we expect to see a lot more from them. The company is positioning itself to be Tesla and Apple’s biggest rivals according to senior VP/company spokesman Nick Sampson who says Faraday Future plans to put a rival to the Tesla Model S on the road by 2017.
