Bankrupt founder of Faraday Future still wants to challenge Tesla

Jia Yueting comments on Tesla’s China deliveries as his startup showcases FF 91 prototype at CES

Faraday Future was once the flashiest electric car venture going after Tesla. Now its founder, who left China with heavy debts and filed for bankruptcy in the US last year, wants you to know the startup is still fighting to survive.

A day after Tesla CEO Elon Musk showed up at Shanghai's Gigafactory for a high-profile ceremony, Jia Yueting wrote on Weibo, "Tesla's China-made cars have been delivered. FF is still striving to move forward. Thank you for the ongoing support from our supporters!"

In his heyday, Jia claimed Faraday Future would one day surpass Tesla. But the embattled automaker, founded in 2014, has yet to deliver its first vehicle to customers. It's currently showing off close-to-production prototypes of the FF 91 at the CES tech show in Las Vegas. The company plans to kick off production in California before the end of this year.

Last month, CEO Carsten Breitfeld told reporters in Beijing that his company is looking for partners to build some of its cars in China. He said that the speed at which Tesla was able to ramp up production in the country "doesn't say too much about Tesla, (but) it says something about China. Because in no other part of the world would you be able to achieve this in only one year."

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