After Faraday fails to pay bills, its contractor stops work on the car company’s $1-billion factory
Faraday Future’s future is looking bleaker.
After the electric car start-up failed to pay millions of dollars in bills, its contractor Monday halted work on Faraday’s $1-billion North Las Vegas, Nev., car factory.
The work stoppage was confirmed by Faraday spokesman Richard Otto.
“We are reassessing where we are on our timeline,” he said Wednesday.
The contractor is Aecom, the Los Angeles-based engineering giant.
“To date, we have completed grading and foundation prep work,” the company said in a statement. “At this time, Faraday Future is temporarily adjusting their construction schedule with plans to resume in early 2017.”
Both sides say they’re trying to work things out. “We’re in daily communication with Aecom,” Otto said.
The secretive Gardena-based start-up is planning to sell a highly automated electric car to rival Tesla and other automakers. But the company, which is backed by Chinese entrepreneur Jia Yueting, appears to be facing serious cash flow problems.
Faraday failed to pay $21 million due to Aecom in September and owed $25 million in October and $12 million in November, according to Aecom.
Last December, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval pushed the state legislature to pass a $335-million incentive package for Faraday, including $215 million in tax breaks.
Nevada state Treasurer Dan Schwartz, however, argued against the deal. “I’m afraid it will never be financed and implode in the middle” of the project, leaving Nevada taxpayers on the hook for millions in state incentives, he told The Times in October.
Auto news site Jalopnik reported in October that six top executives left Faraday within the last several months, including its director of finance.
Twitter: @russ1mitchell
