Faraday Future has signed a joint venture agreement with The9, a China-based internet company, to manufacture, market, distribute and sell luxury intelligent electric vehicles in China. The JV’s immediate objective is to exclusively manufacture, market, distribute and sell Faraday Future’s new V9 model, a flagship luxury EV model designed and developed by Faraday. Other future models could be created with additional agreements.
The agreement is the latest in a series of strategic moves for Faraday as the company builds toward the completion and launch of FF 91 in 2019, and continues development of the mass-market premium FF 81.
Under the JV, The9 will make capital contributions of up to US$600m, and Faraday will make in-kind contributions, including the latter’s use rights to a piece of land located in China for luxury EV manufacturing, and an exclusive license to manufacture, market, distribute and sell Faraday Future’s new brand V9 model (and potentially other 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.
“We are very pleased to see The9, an internet company with more than a decade of industry experience, partner with FF, a high-tech internet mobility company, to bring high-quality luxury electric vehicles to the Chinese marketplace,” said Jun Zhu, CEO of The9.
“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.”
“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 USA,” said Faraday Future founder and CEO YT Jia.
“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.”
