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Faraday Future could be out of business by February
Last we heard, Faraday Future was going through a rough patch in regards to building its manufacturing facility in Nevada. Now, it appears the electric vehicle company's troubles are worse than anticipated. The key theme, across report from Buzzfeed News, Jalopnik and The Verge is money. Specifically, a lack thereof. Faraday has a heap of unpaid bills, lawsuits from vendors and a landlord in addition to losing senior employees. Owed cash is in the hundreds of millions, and it looks like if the company can't secure more funding after CES next month, Faraday Future will be done for by February.
Lucid Motors building $700 million EV factory in Arizona
Lucid Motors (formerly Atieva) has revealed that its upcoming EV, recently unveiled in Los Angeles, will be built in Casa Grande, Arizona. The Phoenix suburb will host the $700 million factory, which will start producing the first model by 2018. "Arizona stands to gain 2,000 new jobs by 2022," Arizona Governor Doug Ducey said. "Lucid has also made a commitment to training and hiring ... Arizona's veterans."
LeEco's phones and TVs are coming to Amazon and Best Buy
LeEco is perhaps best known away from China for its electric cars (and the cash crunch they caused), but it's now making a big US push with its bread-and-butter electronics products. After launching its LeMall.com site earlier this month, it'll let US consumers buy its phones and TVs at retailers like Amazon, Best Buy and Target, starting on December 1st. To entice buyers, it's offering free trials for AT&T's DirecTV Now streaming service, launching tomorrow.
Faraday Future delays EV production plant in Nevada
Construction on Faraday Future's Nevada EV manufacturing plant has stopped, putting projected electric car delivery dates at risk, according to the Financial Times. The Chinese company, backed by electronic giant LeEco, is overdue on millions of dollars of bills to its general contractor Aecom, Nevada state treasurer Dan Schwartz told the FT. Construction is set to resume early next year, but it's unlikely the factory -- still in the early phases of construction -- will be ready to produce vehicles by 2017.
LeEco's first phone for the US nails the basics but fails on software
LeEco is a name you've probably never heard of, but the Chinese electronics company has been popping up everywhere over the past year. It's well-known in China for its TVs and phones, and it also has subsidiaries in the music, film and even bicycle-making businesses. Like many other Chinese phone makers before it, LeEco is eyeing the US market, with its first offering being the Le Pro3. This $400 Android phone covers the basics, delivering excellent hardware, respectable performance and all-day battery life, though it misses the mark with its heavily skinned software.
Faraday Future teaser drops a new look at its production EV
The slow drip-feed of information Faraday Future is running until its CES 2017 reveal continues, with this teaser video giving a better look at its still-camouflaged prototype vehicle. Containing a "Who said don't reinvent the wheel?" tagline, it focuses on that area, while also showing off a side view of something Model X-looking. It's hardly the shape of the wild FFZero1 concept we saw last year, but it looks like we'll have to wait a few more weeks to know what the company is truly capable of building.
LeEco has grown so fast it's running out of cash
Chinese technology company LeEco is still a relatively new name in the west, but in China, the company is one of the most dominant players in smartphones, TVs, movies and e-commerce. With help from Faraday Future, the electronics giant has moved into the automotive industry, but its fast expansion has come at a cost. In a company-wide letter, LeEco co-founder Jia Yueting admitted that the company is running out of cash.
LeEco shows off its LeSee Pro autonomous vehicle in San Francisco
While most of the news coming from LeEco's event in San Francisco was about new TVs and phones, the company's CEO, YT Jia made a point to show off his company's desire to become not just a consumer electronics brand but also an automaker. Unfortunately, the car couldn't make it onto the stage.
LeEco jumps into the US market with TVs, phones, a car and a bike
After proclaiming United States market-domination plans earlier this week, LeEco unveiled a suite of new phones and televisions. The Chinese company wants to make a big splash and today's event is apparently just the beginning.
Tesla rival's EV outed by public records request
Atieva is a Chinese company building an EV for the US market, and we're now getting a first look at its "Atvus" sedan, thanks to a public records search by Recode. The vehicle bears a passing resemblance to the Tesla Model S, with a Citroën-esque rear-wheel cover thrown in. The company has also developed an impressive drive train in a Mercedes test mule van, with a 0 to 60 acceleration time of under three seconds (see the video below). What's perhaps most interesting about Atieva, though, is its tangled ownership web, as the Guardian reported earlier this year.
LeEco inadvertently spoils its US launch plans
LeEco's hardware lineup is supposed to make its splashy US debut on October 19th, but it appears that someone at the company couldn't wait to show what it had in store. Vizio's new owner briefly posted listings for most (if not all) of its American devices, and it looks like the company's cost-conscious Chinese pricing will survive the trip across the Pacific. Its 5.7-inch Le Max 2 flagship, for example, could cost just $349 before a $60 promo discount -- and the mid-tier, 5.5-inch Le S3 (likely a rebranded Le 2) could start at $299 before discounts. You may not like the absence of a built-in headphone jack, but these phones could offer a lot of performance for the money.
Faraday Future unveils 'world's highest energy density' EV battery
Faraday Future has partnered with LG Chem to build battery packs for Faraday's upcoming FFZero1 supercar and other vehicles that use its new electric car platform. In a joint press release, the companies said they have produced "the world's highest energy density for a production automotive battery." Faraday Future and its products are still a mystery, but LG Chem is a well-known firm that's supplying batteries for two important EVs set to arrive this year: the Chevy Bolt and Renault Zoe.
Nokia's VR camera gets a $15,000 discount
Nokia's trolley-dash approach to business means that it now makes health gadgets and professional-level VR cameras. The latter arm sells one product, a $60,000 VR camera called Ozo which is bought by studios like Disney and UEFA. In order to gee-up demand and to celebrate launching in China, Nokia is now hacking $15,000 off the asking price for the gear. The first customer to grab the unit in the middle kingdom is LeVR, the surprisingly-named VR arm of Chinese superconglomerate LeEco. From this we can take one of two things: either Nokia overpriced the hardware, or it's so staggeringly popular that everyone (in the industry) wants one.
Tesla rival LeEco building $1.8 billion EV factory in China
China's EV industry hasn't produced many vehicles yet, but thanks to strong government incentives, it's on an explosive growth curve. One of the main players is electronics giant LeEco, which backs EV builder Faraday Future and recently showed off its own electric car, the LeSee. It unveiled plans for a $1.8 billion EV factory near the Chinese city of Huzhou that will pump out 400,000 EVs per year. The new plant "will be open to all LeEco's strategic partners including Faraday Future," says CEO Jia Yueting.
China's LeEco buys Vizio in a $2 billion deal
Today at an event in Los Angeles, Vizio announced that it will sell to China's LeEco (formerly LeTV) for $2 billion. Don't expect to see much change on store shelves, as the company plans to continue operating under the Vizio name as a wholly-owned subsidiary. The exception to this is its viewer data business Inscape -- we learned about it last year when Vizio filed plans for a now-unnecessary IPO -- which will spin off and operate as a separate privately-owned company controlled by Vizio founder William Wang. Wang will own 51 percent of Inscape, with the rest going to LeEco attached to a 10 year license for the technology, which monitors what people are actually watching on their TV to help with things like targeted advertising.
ICYMI: Targeting Zika with tech, flexi-cam and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-547051{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-547051, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-547051{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-547051").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: Brazil is taking on the Zika virus by creating a smart billboard that attracts, then kills mosquitoes. Columbia University researchers built a camera prototype that takes pictures at a curve. And a Chinese company has stepped to Tesla with a self-driving, electric-only vehicle, though it isn't in production yet. Definitely share the latest in the Volkswagen emissions scandal with your friends who could use $5,000 (but might not get it); or just take in this performance from Prince as he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Music Hall of Fame. He was just so talented. As always, please share any great tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
China's LeEco teases its very own autonomous electric car
LeEco really wants the world to know it isn't just about TVs and smartphones. After the announcements of its investment in Faraday Future and Aston Martin earlier this year, today LeEco showed off its very first electric car that actually moves. The LeSEE vehicle was driven out of a container from one end of the stage, and later, CEO Jia Yueting did a live demo of its self-driving and self-parking capability using voice commands via a mobile app, albeit moving in low speed due to the limited space, as you can see in the video after the break. There's no mention of specs and the English subtitles suggest that this is more of a concept car at the moment, but it does appear to be a solid start.
LeEco's three new smartphones ditch the headphone jack
We've been hearing rumors about Apple killing the 3.5mm headphone jack on its next major iPhone release, but looks like one Chinese company was keen to beat its American rival in this "race." LeEco, famed for bringing the world's first USB Type-C phones and recently investing in Aston Martin's electric car development, has just announced three new smartphones -- the Le 2, Le 2 Pro and Le Max 2 -- that have ditched the conventional headphone jack in favor of the upcoming USB Type-C digital headphones. Unit now, HTC and JBL's Reflect Aware C was the only one in this new headphone category, so it's fitting that LeEco is also adding two of its own USB-C earpieces -- a pair of in-ears and a pair of noise-cancelling over-ears. These are also the first to be certified by LeEco's very own Continual Digital Lossless Audio standard.
Aston Martin is partnering with Faraday Future on electric cars
British luxury carmaker Aston Martin has signed a deal with Chinese tech company LeEco (formerly LeTV) and electric-car startup Faraday Future. As Reuters reports, the plan was revealed at a news conference in Frankfurt, Germany. Aston Martin is forming a joint venture that will work to develop an all-electric take on the Rapide S. That car was announced last year as an 800-horsepower saloon with a 200-mile range. With the tech giant's help, Aston Martin hopes to bring it to market in 2018.
