This week, the Nevada Independent reported that Faraday Future is officially finished in Nevada. The financially troubled electric car start-up has broken ties with Nevada. It has backed-out of the tax deal and gave up the land it attempted to build a factory on.
Steve Hill of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development said that Faraday Future sent the (economic development) board a letter that stated the company was no longer a “qualified project” and thus no longer eligible for the tax and land incentive package it was to receive from Nevada. Faraday Future also sent the state a check for $16,200 to repay monies it had already received from Nevada.
“The Faraday project is basically dissolved at this point at absolutely no cost to the state and local governments,” Hill told the Nevada Independent.
The terms of the deal between Faraday Future and Nevada were that the company would not receive the bulk of the tax package until Faraday had invested $1 billion into the planned factory north of Las Vegas. That never happened. The only real work done at the factory site was literally pushing sand around. About $620,000 that was stilling in a trust for Faraday Future will be disbursed to the various Nevada agencies that were originally slotted to get those funds.
It was also reported that there are as many as four companies that have expressed interest in the land that Faraday was developing. Nevada is going forward with its work on infrastructure outside the site. If a company that qualifies for the same deal that Faraday did steps in, they would reap the same tax and land development benefits originally planned for the site under a law passed in 2015 in Nevada.
Faraday's future is still up in the air. The company has leased space that formerly housed a Pirelli factory in Hanford, CA. Faraday plans to move into the site in early 2018. The company has received some funding to keep them afloat for now. Obviously, they need to get a product to market and moving into a factory that is already built is better than trying to build one from the ground up.
No one really wants to see Faraday Future fail, but their lofty ambitions have caused them setback after setback. Maybe this factory do-over is what the company needs to get things in order and get a car to market. 2018 will be the "make it or break it" year for Faraday Future, assuming nothing happens to it between now and then.