As far as the auto industry is concerned, Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA) is the new kid on the block. But no one, not even the brainchild of Elon Musk, can stay forever young.
That’s right, there’s a new electric carmaker on the scene, and this one’s taking a page or two out of TSLA’s own playbook. The company is called Faraday Future, and it’s currently hunting for a state that will cut it a sweet tax deal on a $1 billion manufacturing plant.
Sound familiar?
Not only is Faraday an electric car company named after a famous scientific mind, and not only is it planning an ambitious, expensive manufacturing facility, but Faraday also aims to produce electric vehicles by sometime in 2017.
TSLA is already making EVs, of course. But its hopes for the future are largely pinned on the Tesla Model 3, the company’s first mass-market vehicle, slated to start shipping in — you guessed it — 2017.
The Mystery Man Behind the Curtain
Faraday Future has already begun poaching top TSLA talent to help grow the startup from scratch. But just who is behind Faraday, and does the company actually pose a threat to TSLA stock?
Those are questions with answers still very much up in the air.
An address in Beijing, found on its original incorporation files in California, is associated with a holding company founded by Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting, who has drawn comparisons to Steve Jobs. Jia Yueting is a tech luminary known for his casual wear at product launches, much like the late Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs, and holds a net worth of $7.3 billion.
Faraday, meanwhile, remains tight-lipped about its ownership, though Faraday’s incorporation papers name its chief executive as Chaoying Deng. Deng is the director of Le Vision, a subsidiary of China’s largest video on demand firm Leshi, also known as LeTV.
The reason Faraday Future is keeping its Chinese management behind a curtain is due to the way it wants the public to view the company — as a U.S. rival to Tesla Motors Inc. According to a source speaking with Tech Crunch, “Chinese people don’t want to buy Chinese products.”
While Yueting may be the mystery investor mostly responsible for financing the TSLA wannabe, experts say that the company is unlikely to have its first electric vehicle on the streets by 2017. Going from zero to having a car on the road within two years would set a “precedent” in and of itself, according to an expert quoted by Yahoo! Tech.
While Faraday Future might sound like a faraway dream at the moment, Jia Yueting does have some awfully ambitious goals, some of which align with taking on Elon Musk’s Tesla directly. Yueting has plans for the connected electric car market in China, and his company recently bought a controlling stake in a Chinese Uber competitor, Yidao Yongche.
While Tesla is rightly considered an electric vehicle company, there are rumblings that the company could move into the ride-hailing space as soon as self-driving cars become a reality.
If Yueting combines his knowledge of the automotive markets and the ride-sharing economy, we could see Faraday beating Tesla to the punch on that potentially massive opportunity.
If not in the U.S., then in China, where the market size is substantially more vast.
As of this writing, John Divine did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. You can follow him on Twitter at @divinebizkid or email him at editor@investorplace.com.
