Faraday Future builds first body-in-white FF91
Electric start-up claims it's ahead of schedule with its production plans, first deliveries on track for December.
Chinese-backed, US-based electric vehicle start-up Faraday Future has released images of the first body-in-white example of its upcoming FF91 crossover.
With deliveries on track to commence in December this year, the company says it has beaten its "timeline objectives" so far, and is working closely with "key suppliers" to continue beating or meeting its deadlines.
"It is honestly inspiring to see how hard we as a team are working to achieve FF91. And it is not that we must push people to work, but everyone is more and more eager to do so as they see the complete car become a reality," said Hector Padilla, FF tooling and equipment manager for body-in-white.
The first FF91 shell was produced at the company's new Hanford facility in California, and will now commence full-vehicle assembly.
Faraday Future has also shed some light on some of the manufacturing processes it's using for the FF91:
- 1,500+ self-piercing rivets for joining the aluminum body structure
- Among the several job-specific body-joining technologies: Aluminium resistant spot welding, cold metal transfer (CMT) welding
- 'Flowform' screw technology allowing an innovative uni-directional joining process not possible with conventional sheetmetal joining methods
- Among first applications of 'Flexweld' resistance element welding (REW) on “Class A” panels that facilitates aluminium-to-steel welding - a particular challenge
- Earliest use of wireless “transducerized” torque tools for all appropriate safety-critical points (a great help in comprehensive error-proofing, total process connectivity/traceability, and precision of assembly)
Revealed at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the FF91 is a fully-electric crossover set to take on the likes of the Tesla Model X.
Faraday Future claims it will sprint from 0-60mph (0-97km/h) in "below three seconds", and drive over 300 miles (483km) on a single charge.
In fact, when it was revealed at CES 2017, the company claimed it actually hit 60mph in 2.59 seconds, narrowly edging the Tesla Model S P100D (2.6 seconds).
The FF91 will also be kitted out with various connected and autonomous driving technologies, though exactly what will make it to market at launch is still to be officially confirmed.
Order books for the new EV have been open to select markets since the beginning of the year, and deliveries are due to commence from December through to mid-2019.
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