This is not something that the animators of Tron:Legacy movie has created. Nor is this a future Batmobile, or some crazy concept that’ll never come into existence. This is actually the Faraday Future (FF) FFZero1. And trust us; it’s brilliant. Faraday Future, a Californian start-up backed by Chinese investors, is a $1 billion enterprise that is setting up a shop in North Las Vegas, Nevada. The Faraday Future team currently comprises of more than 400 employees, from diverse backgrounds spanning the automotive, technology, energy, aerospace and design industries. This includes a few of the former Tesla employees and also Richard Kim, founding member of BMW i-Design and lead designer of the i3 and i8.
This definitely is an exciting new company, and a future handled by seasoned guys. But wait, there’s a little something more you should know! The FFZero1 – revealed at CES ( Consumer Electronic Show ) – is more of a showcase than a preview of a production car. And what it’s showcasing, is the chassis!
FF calls it the ‘Variable Platform Architecture (VPA)’, a flexible system that will allow it to create a variety of differently sized vehicles. Thanks to the four electric motors, it makes over 1000bhp; enough for a 0-100 kmph time of under three seconds; and a top speed of 320 kmph.
Anything up to four motors can be installed in the vehicle, which means both two and four-wheel drive options are possible. Maddeningly, Awesomely, Tesla destroy-ingly quick we would say!
The company officials also said that they want the car to be a smart one with adaptive personalization, seamless transfer of custom vehicle configurations, access to live images, and real time data visualization. They will also be researching and investing into autonomous and intuitive electric vehicles.
The seats in the FFZero1 are something that FF calls the “Zero Gravity Driving Station”, which is inspired by NASA’s zero gravity design. They say that this design reduces fatigue and gives a sense of weightlessness. The wheelbase and crumple zones can be stretched and more batteries can be added, to increase the range. The front and rear wheel units don’t change, which means it’ll be much simpler and cheaper for Faraday Future to produce a wide range of vehicles on the same platform. And that is precisely what it plans to do in the next two years. It might take them a while to convert this brilliant design and the VPA chassis technology into production cars; but for now they seem to be on the right track towards achieving their goal.
Tesla, if you did not take Porsche’s Misson E seriously, you might want to check Faraday Future’s FFZero1 out and think again!
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