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Faraday Future appoints former BMW i8 program lead as its CEO

Faraday Future has appointed Dr Carsten Breitfeld, the man who lead the BMW i8 team, as its new CEO.


According to the beleaguered automaker, Breitfeld has been tasked with bringing the FF 91 electric crossover and the as-yet-unseen FF 81 "mass market electric vehicle" into production, as well as "developing industry-leading technology" and helping with the company's on-going fundraising.

Founder Jia Yueting (YT) will step down as CEO, although he remains on the board as the company's chief product and user officer.

Breitfeld spent around two decades years at BMW, and in 2011 was put in charge of developing and delivering the BMW i8 plug-in hybrid supercar.

He then went on to become co-founder of Byton, an electric car maker incorporated in Hong Kong, and manufacturing and design headquarters in China. Breitfeld left the company in April this year to become CEO of rival Iconiq Motors.

In a statement, Breitfeld said "one of the main reasons I joined [Faraday Future] was YT and his vision for how the mobility eco-system will transform the industry". The two men have also, apparently, known each other for several years.

Faraday Future made headlines when it introduced its FFZERO1 concept (below) at CES 2016, and then broke ground on a new US$1 billion ($1.5 billion) factory just outside of Las Vegas.

Cash problems at parent company LeEco, also founded by Jia, soon put a pause to construction, but the company managed to roll out a concept version of its first production car, the FF 91 crossover, at CES 2017.

A steady drumbeat of bad news culminated in late 2018 with mass layoffs, executive departures and reports of all operations shutting down. In April this year the company secured bridge financing, backed by a Chinese mobile gaming company, to partially pay off creditors.

Today the company said Jia will setup a "debt repayment trust to provide a thorough solution of his remaining debts and has made it a priority to repay them as quickly as he can", although it didn't provide any details of how this mechanism will work or how it will be funded.

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