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<br /> Right from a LED TV to smartphone and virtual reality goggles, <keyword id="3220584" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Le-Eco">Le Eco</keyword> has created a niche for it in the Chinese market. However China’s most expensive film "The Great Wall," due to be released in next February is being produced by by <keyword id="3773010" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="LeEco-Global-Group">LeEco Global Group</keyword>, a Beijing-based company that's virtually unheard of in the West but is planning its own invasion - of the US.<br />
<br /> <keyword id="310615" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Le">Le</keyword> Eco is also a multi-faceted <keyword id="4578" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="entertainment">entertainment</keyword> company, producing films like "The Expendables 2" and shows like "Go Princess Go," which tells the story of a 21st century playboy who travels back in time to ancient China. It operates a popular Chinese video subscription service and also makes electric cars and a smart bike (it has laser pointers, a heart rate sensor and built-in speaker).<br />
<br /> Like other tech companies, <keyword id="3205550" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="LeEco">LeEco</keyword> (Le means happy in Chinese, and Eco is short for Ecosystem) dreams of weaving all these products and services together. Start a LeEco movie on your LeEco smartphone, resume it on your <keyword id="3261986" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="LeEco-TV">LeEco TV</keyword> and finish in your LeEco autonomous car. The company hopes this vision can resonate outside its home country. At an event on Wednesday in <keyword id="12161" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="San-Francisco">San Francisco</keyword>, LeEco is showing off a selection of products, including UHD TVs, smartphones, virtual reality goggles and electric bikes, which will soon go on sale to US consumers, reports <keyword id="29740" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bloomberg">Bloomberg</keyword>.<br />
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In China, LeEco sells its hardware at razor-thin margins. It derives profits from selling subscriptions to movies and television shows (some of it produced by LeEco), in addition to offering access to streamed sporting events, digital music and cloud storage.<br />
<br /> The business model will be difficult to export to the US, since the company does not yet produce any original TV shows or movies targeted to American audiences. But the process is on. In September, LeEco recruited <keyword id="3773011" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Adam-Goodman">Adam Goodman</keyword>, the former president of <keyword id="21575" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Paramount">Paramount</keyword> Pictures' Motion Pictures Group, to join its <keyword id="3773013" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Le-Vision-Entertainment">Le Vision Entertainment</keyword> unit in <keyword id="6354803" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Los-Angeles">Los Angeles</keyword>. He's tasked with replicating the global blockbusters that he produced at Paramount, including the "Mission Impossible" and "Star Trek" franchises.<br />
<br /> According to Bloomberg news, the company also has ambitions in <keyword id="6357722" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="silicon-valley">Silicon Valley</keyword>. It has persuaded executives from <keyword id="10591" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Samsung">Samsung</keyword> and <keyword id="104695" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Qualcomm">Qualcomm</keyword> to join its American team. Earlier this year, LeEco purchased 49 acres of land from <keyword id="6363100" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Yahoo">Yahoo</keyword> in <keyword id="146130" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Santa-Clara">Santa Clara</keyword>, where it plans to build headquarters for up to 12,000 employees.<br />
<br /> Alibaba, Tencent and <keyword id="70373" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Baidu">Baidu</keyword> have opened modest offices in Silicon Valley, and have made investments in US startups. However Le Eco is far different than these Chinese tech giants. In the US, consumers are too reluctant to experiment with new brands and stick to established ones. Now the game is on to see how Le Eco grows in the US, while most Chinese brands have only shown razor-thin margins.

Le Eco is now ambitious to reach out to global market

<br />
<br />
<br /> After a-tell all letter to employees from the <keyword id="3205550" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="LeEco">LeEco</keyword> founder, the global internet conglomerate has made an effort to reaffirm the Indian consumers how important the India market is for the company. YT <keyword id="1282028" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Jia">Jia</keyword>, co-founder and chairman, LeEco said, “India represents the future and its user value may surpass China in a few years,” Jia said at the company’s investor meeting in <keyword id="1333" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Beijing">Beijing</keyword> on November 10. “No matter how hard it is to crack the India market, we will try our best to grasp the opportunity there,” Jia said.<br />
<br /> The self made Chinese billionaire CEO, <keyword id="3161169" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Yueting-Jia">Yueting Jia</keyword> wrote a long letter to his employees last week about how the company’s rapid growth was leading to stagnation and management problems at LeEco, he also highlighted the measures to lessen the company’s burden in his letter saying that the company will immediately begin cost-cutting programs, decrease subsidies for customers and focus on existing businesses instead of new ones, and he also announced that he would invest $10 million into the company and cut his salary to 15 cents.<br />
<br /> The <keyword id="310615" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Le">le</keyword>tter quite surprisingly followed LeEco’s massive global push with a huge splashy launch event last month in the U.S. Le Eco launched two new smartphones and a VR headset in the U.S. at its big launch event that was telling of the company’s expansion into highly competitive markets and the huge expectations that the company had from these markets.<br />
<br />
But the letter painted a different picture, “No company has had such an experience, a simultaneous time in ice and fire,” Jia wrote in a letter, obtained by Bloomberg News, describing LeEco’s rise and subsequent issues. “We blindly sped ahead, and our cash demand ballooned. We got over-extended in our global strategy. At the same time, our capital and resources were in fact limited.”<br />
<br />
LeEco products and services include video streaming, TV, smartphone, content production and electric vehicles. It is also keen to expand its ecosystems around the world with presence in Hong Kong, India, Russia and the US.<br />
<br /> According to a previous letter sent to the employees, the 12 year old <keyword id="3832388" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="chinese-tech">Chinese Tech</keyword> company believes it’s embarking on a new phase of its development, from capital-fuelled expansion to building a stronger hold of existing markets and achieving higher profit. “We will focus on China, American and India and achieve breakthroughs in these three valuable regional markets,” Jia had written in the earlier letter.<br />
<br />
Since its entry into India in January this year, LeEco has introduced two generations of its ‘Superphone’, one generation of ‘SuperTV’ and entertainment membership services in the country. LeEco reiterates it is committed to the Indian markets and will be launching new products in India in the coming weeks.<br />
<br />

LeEco goes from massive global launch in the U.S. to cost cutting programs in China to India becoming the company’s future, all in three weeks

<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /> After a-tell all letter to employees from the <keyword id="3205550" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="LeEco">LeEco</keyword> founder, the global internet conglomerate has made an effort to reaffirm the Indian consumers how important the India market is for the company. YT Jia, co-founder and chairman, LeEco said, “India represents the future and its user value may surpass China in a few years,” Jia said at the company’s investor meeting in <keyword id="1333" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Beijing">Beijing</keyword> on November 10. “No matter how hard it is to crack the India market, we will try our best to grasp the opportunity there,” Jia said.<br />
<br /> The self made Chinese billionaire CEO, <keyword id="3161169" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Yueting-Jia">Yueting Jia</keyword> wrote a long letter to his employees last week about how the company’s rapid growth was leading to stagnation and management problems at LeEco, he also highlighted the measures to lessen the company’s burden in his letter saying that the company will immediately begin cost-cutting programs, decrease subsidies for customers and focus on existing businesses instead of new ones, and he also announced that he would invest $10 million into the company and cut his salary to 15 cents.<br />
<br /> The <keyword id="310615" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Le">le</keyword>tter quite surprisingly followed LeEco’s massive global push with a huge splashy launch event last month in the U.S. Le Eco launched two new smartphones and a VR headset in the U.S. at its big launch event that was telling of the company’s expansion into highly competitive markets and the huge expectations that the company had from these markets.<br />
<br />
But the letter painted a different picture, “No company has had such an experience, a simultaneous time in ice and fire,” Jia wrote in a letter, obtained by Bloomberg News, describing LeEco’s rise and subsequent issues. “We blindly sped ahead, and our cash demand ballooned. We got over-extended in our global strategy. At the same time, our capital and resources were in fact limited.”<br />
<br />
LeEco products and services include video streaming, TV, smartphone, content production and electric vehicles. It is also keen to expand its ecosystems around the world with presence in Hong Kong, India, Russia and the US.<br />
<br /> According to a previous letter sent to the employees, the 12 year old <keyword id="3832388" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="chinese-tech">Chinese Tech</keyword> company believes it’s embarking on a new phase of its development, from capital-fuelled expansion to building a stronger hold of existing markets and achieving higher profit. “We will focus on China, American and India and achieve breakthroughs in these three valuable regional markets,” Jia had written in the earlier letter.<br />
<br />
Since its entry into India in January this year, LeEco has introduced two generations of its ‘Superphone’, one generation of ‘SuperTV’ and entertainment membership services in the country. LeEco reiterates it is committed to the Indian markets and will be launching new products in India in the coming weeks.<br />
<br />

After a-tell all letter to employees from the LeEco founder, the global internet conglomerate has made an effort to reaffirm the Indian consumers how important the India market is for the company. YT Jia, co-founder and chairman, LeEco said, “India represents the future and its user value may surpass China in a few years,” Jia said at the company’s investor meeting in Beijing on November 10. “No matter how hard it is to crack the India market, we will try our best to grasp the opportunity there,” Jia said.<br />
<br />
The self made Chinese billionaire CEO, Yueting Jia wrote a long letter to his employees last week about how the company’s rapid growth was leading to stagnation and management problems at LeEco, he also highlighted the measures to lessen the company’s burden in his letter saying that the company will immediately begin cost-cutting programs, decrease subsidies for customers and focus on existing businesses instead of new ones, and he also announced that he would invest $10 million into the company and cut his salary to 15 cents.<br />
<br />
The letter quite surprisingly followed LeEco’s massive global push with a huge splashy launch event last month in the U.S. Le Eco launched two new smartphones and a VR headset in the U.S. at its big launch event that was telling of the company’s expansion into highly competitive markets and the huge expectations that the company had from these markets.<br />
<br />
But the letter painted a different picture, “No company has had such an experience, a simultaneous time in ice and fire,” Jia wrote in a letter, obtained by Bloomberg News, describing LeEco’s rise and subsequent issues. “We blindly sped ahead, and our cash demand ballooned. We got over-extended in our global strategy. At the same time, our capital and resources were in fact limited.”<br />
<br />
LeEco products and services include video streaming, TV, smartphone, content production and electric vehicles. It is also keen to expand its ecosystems around the world with presence in Hong Kong, India, Russia and the US.<br />
<br />
According to a previous letter sent to the employees, the 12 year old Chinese Tech company believes it’s embarking on a new phase of its development, from capital-fuelled expansion to building a stronger hold of existing markets and achieving higher profit. “We will focus on China, American and India and achieve breakthroughs in these three valuable regional markets,” Jia had written in the earlier letter.<br />
<br />
Since its entry into India in January this year, LeEco has introduced two generations of its ‘Superphone’, one generation of ‘SuperTV’ and entertainment membership services in the country. LeEco reiterates it is committed to the Indian markets and will be launching new products in India in the coming weeks.

LeEco goes from massive global launch in the U.S. to cost cutting programs
in China to India becoming the company’s future, all in three weeks

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Lucid Motors wants to make things very clear: the company isn't like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/faraday-future-money-problems-electric-car-nevada-sources-2017-1" target="_blank">struggling electric car startup Faraday Future</a>.</p><p>"Let's distinguish ourselves first from the scenario at Faraday Future," Lucid CTO Peter Rawlinson told Business Insider at Classic Car Club in Manhattan.<br><br>If you follow the world of electric car startups - the handful of companies all competing to come out with the next big thing in battery-powered automobiles - you'd be forgiven for thinking the two companies are actually very similar.<br><br>Both are still showing off prototypes that they hope to get into production soon. Both are staffed by former Tesla engineers, and both count a Chinese billionaire among their backers. <br><br>Actually, it's the same Chinese billionaire.</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><h2>A shared investor with Faraday</h2><p>Since the mid-2000s, many startups have entered the space with promises of creating the next Tesla - a luxury, high-performance, electric car.</p><p>Faraday Future is perhaps the most hyped. After months of build-up, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/people-are-unimpressed-with-faraday-future-2016-1" target="_blank">the startup disappointed</a> with its first big unveiling at CES in 2016 by only showing a concept car that would never enter production. This year, its unveiling of a working car was marred by malfunctions on stage, and the business is short on cash, losing executives, and just <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/faraday-future-news-vallejo-mare-island-las-vegas-plant-2017-3" target="_blank">scrapped plans for a second facility</a> in the San Francisco Bay Area.<br><br>Faraday, based in Los Angeles, is backed by Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting, the founder of electronics company LeEco. <br><br>Yueting is also an investor in Lucid Motors - he bought in back in 2014 when the company was still called Atieva. A 2016 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/20/faraday-futures-owner-rival-electric-car-startup-atieva-jia-yueting" target="_blank">Guardian investigation</a> found that several Atieva employees feared Yueting's involvement in the company, specifically that he would try to merge the company with the now-struggling Faraday Future.</br></br></br></br></p><p>That's where Rawlinson wants to clear the air. Faraday's financing troubles - which seem to originate from a cash crunch at LeEco itself - don't apply here, he said.</p><p>"LeEco is a minority investor in our company and was a minority investor as part of our series C funding round," he said. "We received those funds in our bank, we are absolutely independent of any cash crisis."</p><p>Lucid Motors has also secured funding from venture capital firm Venrock and Mitsui &amp; Co.</p><h2>Competing with Tesla</h2><p>Rawlinson was the chief engineer behind Tesla's Model S, and joined Lucid Motors in 2013 when it decided to pivot from developing battery technology to manufacturing its own electric vehicles. Other engineers that helped work on the Model S, like Eric Bach, Tesla's former director of engineering, are now working on Lucid Motors' first vehicle: the Lucid Air.</p><p>Rawlinson was at the Classic Car Club last Thursday to show off the company's very first Lucid Air prototype: a 1,000-horsepower, luxury electric car with a 315-mile driving range that will cost over $100,000. </p><p>Production of the Lucid Air is slated to begin in late 2018 at the company's manufacturing facility in Casa Grande, Arizona. Construction of the actual plant is expected to start the second quarter of this year.</p><p>The silver sedan, with its futuristic LED headlights and spacious interior, was meant to convey a very clear message: the Lucid Air is not 'vaporware.'</p><p>"We've got a product which is running, which is driving, which is there," Rawlinson said. "We're going to take you for a ride in that. Can any others do that?"</p><h2>Still mysterious</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Still, Lucid isn't without its own air of mystery. <br><br>The company has been operating without a CEO since late 2015. <br><br>Bernard Tse, a former vice president of Tesla that founded Lucid Motors, left at the end of that year following friction with state-owned Beijing Automotive Industry Holding (BAIC), according to the 2016 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/20/faraday-futures-owner-rival-electric-car-startup-atieva-jia-yueting" target="_blank">Guardian</a> investigation.</br></br></br></br></p><p>BAIC used to be Lucid Motors' largest shareholder with a 25% stake in the company. That stake was sold to another investor in March 2016, Rawlinson said. He declined to comment on the who owns that stake now.</p><p>"We are not a Chinese car company. I want to state this very clearly," he said. "We are absolutely, vehemently a fiercely independent American company."</p><h2>Competing with Tesla in China</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Lucid might not be a Chinese car company, but Rawlinson said it's poised to take Tesla on in China, which is expected to see an <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-china-europe-drive-shift-to-electric-cars-as-us-lags-2017-1" target="_blank">uptick in electric car adoption</a> in 2017 as emission standards tighten.</p><p>Outside of its Chinese investors, the company also has relationships in the country - where its own battery tech and powertrain technology was used in a fleet of electric buses <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2009-05-28/tesla-alum-takes-on-battery-tech-at-startup-atieva" target="_blank">subsidized by the government</a>.</p><p>And the company's batteries, which have been refined over 10 years, make the Lucid Air more tolerant to repeated, fast-charging than other electric vehicles, Rawlinson said. That means the cars can better handle being left in chargers overnight.</p><p>That will be alluring to affluent Chinese clientele looking for a luxury electric car, Rawlinson said.</p><p>"We have a product that is so relevant to the Chinese market," Rawlinson said. "Tesla hasn't been as successful there."</p><p>Rawlinson is correct that Tesla adoption in China has been tepid. Although it's revenue in China tripled to $1 billion in 2016, Tesla sales in China are less than a quarter of what the company made in the US, according to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-28/tencent-buys-1-8-billion-tesla-stake-ahead-of-musk-s-model-3" target="_blank">Bloomberg</a>.</p><p>But that could change, after Chinese internet giant <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-chinese-tech-giant-tencent-takes-5-percent-stake-in-tesla-2017-3" target="_blank">Tencent purchased a 5% stake in Tesla</a> for $1.8 billion on Tuesday.</p><p>The Lucid Air would need to compete with Tesla's Model S P100D, which has a 315-mile range and starts at $134,500.</p><p>But Rawlinson said he doesn't see the Lucid Air as a "Tesla killer." Instead, it's a luxury car that will compete with high-end automobiles across the board.</p><p>"This is where we go head-to-head unashamedly with Mercedes-Benz, Audi, and BMW," Rawlinson said. "Those are the key competitor cars for this market... [and] that marketplace is worth $100 billion a year."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-how-self-driving-car-sees-road-2016-11">Tesla reveals how your self-driving car sees the road</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="U0Ym5yNzE6JVehzfvAL7o4lu7-8AEnZv" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Startup Lucid Motors insists it is defying the electric car curse and will challenge Tesla in China

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Chinese company LeEco is making serious moves to compete with Tesla.<p>LeEco just raised $1.08 billion to develop its electric car, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-20/chinese-web-video-tycoon-raises-1-08-billion-for-electric-car" target="_blank">Bloomberg reported</a>. The news comes about a month after&#xa0;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-chinas-leeco-to-invest-18-billion-in-electric-car-factory-2016-8">LeEco invested $1.8 billion</a> to build an electric-car plant in eastern China with eventual annual production capacity of 400,000 cars.</p><p>The company originally revealed its electric concept car, called the LeSee, in April.</p><p>While the production version will likely stray somewhat from the concept vehicle, it's worth taking a closer look at the LeSee to get an idea of what we can expect.&#xa0;</p><p>&#xa0;</p>

China's Tesla killer just raised $1 billion for its electric car project - here's everything we know about it

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/s?q=faraday+future">Faraday Future</a>, an electric-vehicle company based in California, generated a lot of buzz when it poached top talent from companies like Tesla, BMW, Audi, Ford, and Ferrari. The ambitious company was cofounded and largely financed by Jia Yueting, a millionaire mogul who owns a multibillion-dollar media conglomerate in China.</li><li>In 2017, a court in Shanghai issued a freezing order on Jia's assets, and Jia was named to a debt blacklist after he left to California to helm Faraday Future and refused to return to China to pay more than 470 million yuan. In 2018, Jia, $3.6 billion in debt, filed for bankruptcy. Unable to find another financier, Faraday Future furloughed all essential employees and applied for government financial assistance.</li><li>Jia is no longer a majority investor in the company nor its CEO; however, he remains in a senior role as a chief product and user officer. Faraday Future, helmed by a new CEO, relaunched its first production EV, the FF 91, this past November.</li><li>Visit Business Insider's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">homepage</a> for more stories.</li></ul><p>The following is a transcript of the video:</p><p><strong>Narrator: </strong>In 2015, Faraday Future was a California-based electric-car startup with deep pockets in China and ambitions to take on the world. It assembled, seemingly out of nowhere, a star-studded cast of top executives from Tesla, Audi, Lamborghini, BMW, Ferrari, Volkswagen, Ford, and Google, united behind a forward-thinking vision of jump-starting the autonomous, connected electric-car ecosystem. Or developing a car subscription service. Or inventing a drivetrain that could be mounted to any type of vehicle. Or putting this...Batmobile car into production? Wait, were they serious? OK, in 2015, Faraday Future's actual plans were a mystery. But with a 1,500-person workforce, over 100 employees poached straight from Tesla, a foot planted firmly in Los Angeles, and an agreement for a $1 billion factory in Nevada, Faraday Future was ready to kill Tesla where it stood. But by 2018, Faraday Future had burned through billions of dollars and was struggling to stay in business. And it's almost all because of this man: Faraday Future's cofounder Jia Yueting, a billionaire tech entrepreneur whose aggressive money borrowing powered Faraday Future into a shining star in the automotive industry and simultaneously brought its downfall in three short years.</p><p>This is how the man who challenged Tesla went bankrupt.</p><p>Jia Yueting, or YT, as he was called, started his career in the 1990s as an official in a local tax bureau. He left to start a whole bunch of businesses ranging from coal to mobile phones. In 20 years he would be the 17th richest person in China, with a net worth of $7.3 billion. His most successful venture was a streaming company called LeTV, which launched its video-streaming service in 2004, three years before Netflix. On the heels of LeTV's success, YT acquired and developed other lines of businesses: smartphones, TVs, sports programming, financial products, smart bicycles, and even electric cars, all under an umbrella brand called LeEco, or Le Economy. While LeEco's activities seemed unrelated, YT saw an opportunity to provide consumers with everything they could want: an electric car that could drive you around, call your friends, hold a business meeting, or watch sports, all in one neat little LeEco package. In 2014, YT cofounded Faraday Future, headquartered in California. YT would spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing a car out of Faraday Future, eventually planning to open a $1 billion factory in Nevada, the same state where Tesla was building its Gigafactory. Meanwhile, in 2015, YT led an aggressive campaign to expand LeEco products into the United States, opening an 80,000-acre campus in San Jose, California, hiring over 300 employees from Silicon Valley, and acquiring American TV manufacturer Vizio for $2 billion. In 2016, LeEco launched its flagship smartphone, the Le Pro 3 and Le S3, and a smart TV, the EcoTV, with the aim to take on tech giants Apple and Google in the US market. And none of these ventures were making money for YT. With the exception of the streaming service LeShi, formerly LeTV, none of LeEco's seven businesses were profitable, according to Bloomberg.</p><p>So where did all the money come from? Some from YT's pockets, but a lot more came from China's lenders. As reported by The New York Times, YT found cash, over $2.1 billion in this report, in two different ways. One: He simultaneously courted small, working-class investors by promising good rates of return and playing down risks. Two: He tapped back channels and dealt in China's shadowy informal banking system where regulations hardly existed. Understandably, there was a huge backlash when YT didn't deliver on his promises. In April of 2017, 37 representatives of small businesses staged a sit-in in the LeEco lobby, demanding LeEco pay $10 million that was owed to them. LeEco responded by filling its lobby with potted plants to keep the angry creditors from loitering there. YT ignored an order to appear in court in 2017 and instead fled China to Faraday Future in California, his last chance at getting some money together. The consequences of his debt, though, were too big and too far-reaching for Faraday Future to save him.</p><p>In 2017, the court in China named YT to a debt blacklist. The blacklist is a way to publicly slap the wrist of affluent Chinese businesspeople and try to prevent them from spending recklessly. But most importantly, YT's name on that list meant investors were less keen on doing business with Faraday Future. In fact, Stefan Krause, Faraday Future's CFO, was offered financing deals that were strictly contingent on YT resigning or giving up a controlling part of the company. It's just, YT didn't want to give up control. And Faraday Future desperately needed the money. After three years, the company didn't even have a car to sell. Remember that 1,500-person workforce? Well, The Verge reported that insiders at Faraday said the company didn't even have work for them to do. In 2018, Faraday Future, burning through cash and unable to find another financier, laid off a large chunk of its employees and applied for financial assistance. In October of 2019, Jia filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. According to the notice, YT accumulated over $6.6 billion of debt in total while repaying only $3 billion.</p><p>This story ends on a hopeful note. Today, Faraday Future is still alive. It continued to develop its first announced production car, the FF 91, and has tried to respark interest in it, keeping a stream of footage of the car on the street and in testing up on the Faraday Future YouTube channel. The company has a new CEO, the man in charge of the BMW i program and cofounder of Byton cars, Carsten Breitfeld. Breitfeld expressed renewed commitment in Faraday Future's mission of using the technology FF has developed thus far to transform the car industry. And as for YT? Well, he's still living in a mansion in California. He's still involved in Faraday as a senior officer in charge of design, though he is no longer a financier of the company. In a statement on Twitter, YT apologized for his mistakes, namely failing to repay his debts. He also mentions how important it is for him to return to China, repay his debts, and make Faraday Future a successful company. It's easy to see YT had all the tools to make a revolutionary car company. If you look around, you'd see YT's vision in 2014 for a smart, connected electric-car ecosystem was right on the money. His bravado and charisma are the same as Elon Musk's, who kept Tesla afloat through rocky financial situations on vision and enthusiasm alone. Faraday Future could have easily been as successful as Tesla; simply, the decision to push forward for so long without seeing cash and never compromising was unsustainable. YT says, "The success of a company is all about the choices it makes." Seems like YT just made some wrong ones.</p><p class="tagline"><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/intelligence/future-of-retail?IR=T&amp;itm_source=businessinsider&amp;itm_medium=ctgr_bii&amp;itm_term=ctgr_leadgen&amp;itm_content=tesla&amp;itm_campaign=future-of-retail-2"></a></p>

How the man who challenged Tesla went bankrupt

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3134161-Pages-From-Atieva-USA-OL-Application.html">Recode/California Public Records</a></span></p><p class="caption">Atieva's electric sedan.</p></div><p></p></div></div>We finally got a glimpse of the electric car start-up Atieva is building to rival Tesla.</p><p><a href="http://www.recode.net/2016/10/13/13268450/atieva-atvus-image-tesla-faraday-le-eco" target="_blank">Recode's Mark Harris</a> retrieved the image via a public records request to the state of California. There's not too much we can glean from the photo, other than the fact that it's an electric sedan, which is still noteworthy at a time automakers are turning their attention to electric SUVs.</p><p>Atieva has released a series of videos showing off its tech in a van dubbed Edna, the <a href="http://blog.atieva.com/ednasupgrade/" target="_blank">most recent</a> of which showed it was able to accelerate to 60 mph in 2.74 seconds.</p><p>The documents obtained from Harris also show Atieva's manufacturing facility is Dayang Motorcycle, which is located in the city of Luoyang, China. Dayang Motorcycle is an electric motorbike and scooter company.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Recode/California Public Records</span></p><p class="caption">The photo of Atieva's manufacturing facility, Dayan Motorcycle.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Atieva told Chinese reporters in September that it was working on an electric car with independent front and rear electric motors that could accelerate to 62 mph in less than 3 seconds, according to the Recode report.</p><p>Atieva executives said in an <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-chinaev-idUSKCN0Z02IA" target="_blank">interview with Reuters</a> that it was planning to release its electric premium sedan on the road in 2018, with luxury crossovers slated to arrive in 2020 or 2021.</p><p>Atieva was started in California by former executives from Tesla and Oracle. The start-up's chief technology officer, Peter Rawlinson, is a former lead engineer for Tesla's Model S.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/LeEcoGlobal/photos/a.1604271533143815.1073741828.1535727923331510/1729153000655667/?type=3&amp;theater">Facebook/LeEco</a></span></p><p class="caption">LeEco's electric concept car.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting, the founder of Chinese internet company LeEco, has invested in Atieva. Yueting is also an investor in electric car start-up Faraday Future.</p><p>LeEco recently raised $1.08 billion to develop its electric car, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-20/chinese-web-video-tycoon-raises-1-08-billion-for-electric-car" target="_blank">Bloomberg reported</a> in September. The company has revealed its electric concept car, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/china-tesla-killer-electric-car-lesee-2016-9" target="_blank">the LeSEE</a>, which has a top speed of 130 mph and autonomous capabilities.</p><p>Faraday Future also unveiled its <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/faraday-future-unveils-electric-car-at-ces-2016-1" target="_blank">electric concept car</a> with a top speed of more than 200 mph at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Faraday Future is building its <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/faraday-future-to-begin-construction-on-factory-in-nevada-2016-4" target="_blank">manufacturing plant</a> in Nevada.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/everything-we-know-about-tesla-model-3-specs-interior-price-2016-9">Everything we know about the Tesla Model 3</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="53MTl4NTE6S6Y8jDeJVkP0p3LgZSjIG1" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

A Silicon Valley startup is trying to rival Tesla with an electric sedan - here's a first look at its car

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Ethan Miller/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">(L-R) Faraday Future Vice President of Design Richard Kim, LeEco Founder and CEO YT Jia and Faraday Future Senior Vice President of Research and Development and Engineering Nick Sampson</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>Faraday Future has more than $400 million in debt that will come due in December if it fails to raise half a billion dollars in a Series A round.</strong></li><li><strong>The electric-car startup has been scrambling for cash since at least the beginning of 2017.</strong></li><li><strong>So far this year, Faraday has scrapped plans to build factories in North Las Vegas and the San Francisco Bay Area, and lost scores of top talent, including its recently hired COO/CFO Stefan Krause.</strong></li><li><strong>The company owes millions of dollars in unpaid bills.</strong></li></ul><p><br />Faraday Future is said to be running up against a December deadline to raise $500 million in what has so far been an unsuccessful Series A round.</p><p>According to a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-28/chinese-rival-to-elon-musk-is-said-to-face-crunch-at-car-startup?utm_content=tech&amp;utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-tech">Bloomberg report</a> published Monday night, Faraday will be on the hook for a $400 million convertible note plus 12% interest if it can't raise half a billion dollars by next month. Faraday needs the money to pay off Chinese investors who financed the debt, according to unnamed sources cited by Bloomberg.</p><p>The flailing electric-car startup has been trying to raise more money since at least the beginning of 2017. Business Insider reported in July remarks from company insiders who said at the time that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/faraday-future-latest-news-cash-flow-crisis-forces-company-to-leave-north-las-vegas-factory-2017-7">Faraday was "in a precarious situation"</a> as it grappled with some of the same problems that linger at the company today.</p><p>Faraday owes millions of dollars in unpaid bills and is facing lawsuits from some of its suppliers. The company has also suffered an exodus of top talent, including the recently hired COO/CFO Stefan Krause, who quit the company last month.</p><p>Krause had been spearheading a $1 billion fundraise for Faraday over the summer. The venture had taken him on a worldwide blitz to the Middle East, London, Germany, China, and back to the US to speak with roughly 35 investors - mostly private individuals - to fund a two-year plan designed to get Faraday's North Las Vegas factory off the ground and move its concept car, the FF91, closer to production.</p><p>The lack funding forced Faraday to shelve the massive factory project in North Las Vegas. The company later said it <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/faraday-future-new-factory-california-the-sequoia-plant-hanford-2017-8">signed an agreement to lease property</a> about 40 miles south of Fresno, California.</p><p>People familiar with the fundraising effort told Business Insider this month that Faraday's difficulty raising $1 billion for its Series A was partially due to investor anxiety over Faraday's primary backer, Jia Yueting, and his control of the company. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/leeco-jia-yueting-assets-frozen-amid-cash-crunch-2017-7">A Chinese court froze millions of dollars in assets</a> belonging to Jia earlier this year because of past-due loans linked to one of his businesses there.</p><p>Jia has been unwilling to relinquish control of Faraday Future, Business Insider's sources have said. Bloomberg's report seemed to confirm this, noting that Jia rejected a bankruptcy plan drawn up by Krause before Krause left the company, and scrapped other solutions that would lead to him being pushed out of his company.</p><p>Faraday has insisted that the bankruptcy documents, <a href="https://jalopnik.com/faraday-future-says-someone-faked-documents-to-suggest-1820271125">which had been floating around online</a>, were "faked."</p>     <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/interview-with-kristina-hooper-chief-investment-strategist-at-invesco-2017-11">We talked to the chief investment strategist at $920 billion fund giant Invesco about where you should invest right now</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Faraday Future is reportedly struggling to raise $500 million ahead of a major deadline

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Faraday Future, the electric-car startup once hyped as a "Tesla-killer," was getting a second chance. It had to get this one right.<br><br>Early this month, a roster of company executives and Faraday's most visible investor, Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting, gathered at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the annual mega-showcase for the technology, electronics, and auto industry's buzziest new products, from drones to TVs to self-driving cars.<br><br>For Los Angeles-based Faraday Future, it was a chance to prove to the world that the company is for real, after its first appearance at CES in 2016 raised more questions than it answered. The startup had unveiled a sleek autonomous prototype, but the vehicle turned out to be an inoperable one-seat race car that might never be built - hardly a challenger to Tesla's growing fleet of electric vehicles that the tech press had been hoping for.<br><br>So in 2017, nearly three years after its founding, and after the company had poached talent from Silicon Valley and Detroit and ballooned to 1,400 employees, Faraday Future needed to show it could produce a real car. Instead, its second attempt has been largely deemed a <a href="http://mashable.com/2017/01/04/faraday-future-ff-91-reveal/">flop</a>. The company does have cars that can drive, but it struggled to prove that on the CES stage. It was, perhaps, a fitting end to a year of turmoil for Faraday and a moment of glee for its critics, including recently departed employees.<p>Business Insider interviewed eight people with intimate knowledge of Faraday Future's business to learn about the state of affairs leading up to the CES presentation. All the executives spoke on condition of anonymity so that they could speak freely. <br><br>They described a business in shambles, with more than a half-dozen senior executives departing since last spring - including Faraday's global CEO, who had left just before CES. The current and former Faraday insiders also describe millions of dollars in unpaid bills, and a chaotic corporate structure between Faraday's US and Chinese operations. The most immediate of Faraday's problems is its cash shortage, insiders said. "If CES doesn't bring in fresh investors, it's over between February and May," one source close to the company told Business Insider.</br></br></p><p>The accounts in this story were presented to representatives for Faraday Future and its Chinese partner LeEco, who described the accounts as speculation and declined to comment further.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><h2>It starts with Jia</h2><p>Jia Yueting is Faraday Future's only publicly known investor.</p><p>Sometimes referred to as "YT," Jia is CEO of the Chinese electronics company LeEco, which makes smartphones, TVs, and virtual-reality headsets. Forbes estimates his wealth at nearly $4 billion, making him the 37th-richest person in China last year. <br><br>Through a holding company, many of the businesses have been publicly listed in China since 2010, <a href="http://www.leeco.com/in/leadership/yueting-jia/">according to Jia's corporate biography</a>. That business has a market value of about $11 billion.</br></br></p><p>Faraday Future was established in 2014 by two people: Jia and Faraday's current senior vice president of research, development, and engineering, Nick Sampson. Sampson managed an engineering team at Tesla before moving to Faraday Future.</p><p>But since Faraday officially debuted at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show, it was unclear who was running the company. Faraday did not publicly name a CEO or reveal who its other investors were, aside from Jia. Even now, <a href="https://www.ff.com/en/our-company/people/">its website</a> lists several senior executives but no CEO.</p><p>Several of Business Insider's sources who have direct knowledge of the company's leadership structure said there have been at least two "CEOs of record," people who had the ability to sign financial documents for the company. The first was <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/chaoying-deng-4562aa14">Chaoying Deng</a>, an executive from a LeEco subsidiary who held the role until October 2015.</p><p>The second CEO of record was David Wisnieski, who was officially Faraday Future's director of finance. <a href="http://nvsos.gov/sosentitysearch/CorpDetails.aspx?lx8nvq=PxI8Szvg0dWGBioKP2t%252fhw%253d%253d&amp;nt7=0">Publicly available documents</a> from the state of Nevada list Wisnieski as president, secretary, treasurer, and director of "Faraday &amp; Future Inc.," the company's legal name. He left in July 2016, and a new officers' list isn't due to Nevada until March.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Notably, Chaoying, the first CEO of record, resurfaced on new Faraday documents last month. She signed a land-sale agreement on behalf of Faraday Future in Nevada. She is listed on the document as president of the limited liability company <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/faraday-future-buys-land-in-north-las-vegas-2016-4">under which Faraday buys its land</a>, called Robin Prop Holdco LLC. The document details a December payment of $510,000 to Faraday Future from the city of North Las Vegas for 17 acres of land at the site of Faraday's future assembly plant.<p>Three people close to Faraday said that a third person, named Ding Lei, who was officially a cofounder at LeEco, was acting as Faraday's "global CEO" until late 2016 when he suddenly left the company.</p><p>"He was unable to contain YT," one source said about Ding Lei's working relationship with Jia.</p><p>The Verge, <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/29/14112356/faraday-future-ding-lei-leeco-lesee">which reported the news of Ding's departure</a> in late December, reported that he remains employed by Jia's LeEco's own car project called LeSEE, citing a spokeswoman for the Chinese company. One person told Business Insider said this means he remains involved with Faraday's China division, which this person described as essentially an extension of LeSEE.</p><p>The people say that it is Jia who is now acting as Faraday's unofficial CEO, directing its teams and making decisions for the company. "This isn't a strategic partnership - it's a subsidiary," said one of the people.</p><h2>'Inefficient and disorganized'</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div>That status, as a de-facto subsidiary of LeEco rather than an independently run business, is where many of Faraday's troubles start, the people say. They describe arrangements that seem geared toward advancing the development of a car at LeEco rather than producing one for Faraday, and decisions made to please Jia's ambitions rather than to reflect the reality of Faraday's means.<p>"The US management team really had no say and had to do what [Jia] wanted because he was paying for everything," a source who worked in design for the company said.</p><p>The clash of cultures between Faraday in the US and LeEco in China started early, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/26/faraday-future-jia-yueting-electric-vehicles-tesla-letv">The Guardian</a> reported last year, explaining that the Chinese managers' proposal to name the company Fara Faro was met with ridicule by the Americans, who eventually picked the name Faraday Future.<br><br>And the insiders who spoke with Business Insider say Faraday Future is often visited by groups of LeEco employees from China who frequently travel to Faraday's Los Angeles-area headquarters.</br></br></p><p>"There were times that the Beijing team would come out and learn what we were doing but were working on their own designs and then they would go back," one source said.</p><p><br><br /></br></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><h2>A $1 billion mirage in the desert</h2><p>That push to fulfill all Jia's wishes goes back to early plans for a $1 billion factory, in a vast expanse of dusty desert land 10 miles north of the Vegas Strip. The startup's proposed 900-acre factory would be the home of its US vehicle production, and about 4,500 people, many of whom are locals, would be hired to work there. The plans were celebrated by state officials, including Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval in April 2016.</p><p>Business Insider <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/faraday-future-to-begin-construction-on-factory-in-nevada-2016-4">was at the event</a>, where wine and hors d'oeuvre were served in an air-conditioned tent next to a vast, dusty vacant lot.</p><p>"Welcome home, Faraday. Welcome home," Gov. Sandoval declared as he took the stage.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Jia was shown several options for the North Las Vegas plant because company finances seemed to be tightening, the two people with knowledge of the decision said. Some of those proposals were more cost-effective than others. Jia pushed for the big one.<p>One source with knowledge of the factory plans said work at the site "stopped almost as soon as it started."</p><p>Faraday and its contractor, AECOM, said the work stoppage was only a hiccup and the project would resume in 2017. At a December 2016 media tour inside Faraday Future's headquarters, Faraday showed a flashy video simulation of the machinery its future factory would have. When pressed on the timeline for the factory, Dag Reckhorn, the company's vice president of manufacturing, initially implied it has, before clarifying that grading at the site was complete and a video of the still-empty dirt lot was "basically last week, those were the last finishing touches." When asked when the building would be completed, Reckhorn said, "We will reveal that early next year [2017]."</p><p>Business Insider's sources said Faraday Future has already purchased some of the equipment for the factory and is exploring financing options to get the project going again. But if the money is not there, Faraday may be forced to build a smaller-scale, low-volume plant instead.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><h2>Where's the money?</h2><p>Unpaid bills are piling up. Money owed to suppliers alone adds up to about $300 million, executive-level sources told Business Insider. As BuzzFeed News' Priya Anand <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/priya/turmoil-at-faraday-future?utm_term=.fcwzJDBM#.tyvEwzQy">reported</a> in December, at least two companies have sued Faraday over unpaid bills, although one of those cases has already been dismissed.</p><p>Jia, according to the sources, pushed teams to keep spending money at 100% but leaves them in the dark about sources of funds.</p><p>"There was no visibility about when the money would arrive - we were told to continue making commitments to suppliers," a source at the company said, adding that Faraday got about 10% of the money it needed each month, "only $10 to $15 million."</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_left float_right"><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div>According to another executive-level source, Faraday was seeking help from Chinese investors who were due to visit the company after its CES presentation earlier this month. On multiple occasions over the past year, Faraday's US spokespeople have told Business Insider that the startup employs a "diverse funding strategy," but the company had repeatedly declined to specify who, besides Jia, has invested in the company.<p>The sources Business Insider spoke with did say that Faraday raised a $1 billion convertible bond in China last year, but that the company is still working on getting the funds across the border. <br><br>The Chinese government, worried about the record outflow of yuan from the country, has <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-13/pboc-said-to-step-up-yuan-curbs-with-banks-told-to-balance-flow-ixv9p5oq">imposed restrictions on the overseas transfer</a> of funds by both companies and individuals, and Business Insider's sources say Faraday's top executives were wary of increased scrutiny from the Chinese government if it sought approval to convert that money from yuan to US dollars.<br><br>Jia admitted in November that he had gotten in over his head with all the projects, writing a letter to employees apologizing for moving "blindly" ahead, Bloomberg News <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-07/troubled-chinese-billionaire-confesses-to-cash-crunch-at-leeco">reported</a>.<br><br>"Our cash demand ballooned. We got overextended in our global strategy. At the same time, our capital and resources were in fact limited," Jia's letter read. In a deal announced last week, LeEco said it would raise about $2 billion by selling a stake to a Chinese real-estate developer called Sunac China Holdings. The stake sale means LeEco's own cash crunch is almost over, but it won't help the electric-car business, <a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/tech/2017-01/17/content_27973403.htm">China Daily cited Jia as saying</a>:</br></br></br></br></br></br></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"Sunac is our second-biggest shareholder. We will explore how to use the internet to fuel its real estate businesses," Jia said, adding that its electric-car unit would start looking for investors.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><h2>High-profile departures</h2><p>Faraday Future lost numerous employees and executives in the waning months of 2016, including chief brand strategist Marco Mattiacci, who arrived just months before, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/faraday-future-new-senior-executive-2016-6">to wide fanfare</a>.</p><p>Also gone:</p><ul><li>Greg Adams, head of corporate strategy</li><li>Dave Wisnieski, director of finance</li><li>Ding Lei, Faraday's "paper" CEO</li><li>Stacy Morris, former head of communications</li><li>Robert Filipovic, head of product strategy</li><li>Sarah Ashton, associated director of governmental affairs</li><li>Syed Rahman, operations controller</li><li>James Chen, general counsel</li></ul><p>This is not an exhaustive list. Notably, during the December press event at the company's headquarters, Faraday representatives boasted of a total workforce of about 1,400 people, 1,000 of whom are based in the US. A person close to the company told Business Insider the company cannot feasibly support its current staffing levels and would need to cut that number nearly in half.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><h2>Keeping up appearances</h2><p>The company's 2017 showing at CES fared only slightly better than its disastrous debut a year earlier, even though this time Faraday had several working prototypes to show off.</p><p>Faraday's FF91 vehicle failed when Jia pushed a button that was supposed to make the car park itself. After several uncomfortable minutes of silence and ad-libbing between Jia and Nick Sampson, the stage lights dimmed and the car was moved a few feet across the stage.</p><p>The full live-streamed video that included the embarrassing flub was removed from Faraday Future's YouTube channel and replaced with an identical video that ends seconds before the failure is shown. The original video is still live on the site, <a href="https://youtu.be/1Y8hUf0Np6k">and you can find it here</a>. The malfunction begins around the 1:12:30 mark.</p><p>Faraday needed this year's presentation to turn heads, so the event, live-streamed via YouTube, featured several high-end cars - including a Ferrari 488 GTB, a Bentley Bentayga, a Tesla Model X, and a Model S accelerating quickly off the stage.</p><p>What the livestream audience did not see was a close-up look at the Faraday Future car's interior, where the many first-of-its-kind technologies would be displayed. It wasn't shown because it wasn't ready.</p><p>The examples Business Insider viewed in person at Faraday's headquarters had only hard plastic moldings of a simulated interior. Faraday had one real, working seat to demonstrate to a group of about 25 journalists.</p><p>Faraday told journalists at the time that it would not show the interior at CES. As with several other major details about the car - including the price - a reveal would come later, the company promised.</p><p>"All that stuff at CES was just a bunch of bulls---," one highly placed Faraday Future source told Business Insider in an interview. Another said the FF91 shown at CES "isn't even close to being complete," despite the company's claims that it would go into production in 2018.</p><h2>What's next<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></h2><p>For Faraday Future, the biggest unknowns come back to the money. If the company can successfully pull money out of China, the company could survive.</p><p>A Faraday factory could eventually be built, Faraday could produce more than just a few of its electric vehicles, and, despite a rumored sticker price of at least $180,000 for the FF91, perhaps a few people might even buy one.</p><p>The company announced that it received more than 64,000 reservations for the car shortly after CES, but people were allowed to put their names down with or without a $5,000 deposit. Sources close to the company told Business Insider 60 people actually submitted a paid reservation.</p><p>Faraday Future has a good PR team. The buzz surrounding the company has been relentless, with a steady stream of tweets, YouTube videos, and blog posts that Faraday uses to keep people talking. But so far there has been little substance to back it all up.</p><p>Initiatives that are key to getting its cars on the road, such as government-mandated crash testing, have yet to be performed.</p><p>And time for the startup seems to have almost run out. As one Faraday Future source who spoke with Business Insider put it, "If they can't figure out a way to get the money out of China in the next 60 days, the suppliers would essentially force them into bankruptcy."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/key-exercises-get-stronger-2017-1">An exercise scientist reveals the key to getting stronger</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="VubGdvNDE6avxGj37Zv1jxiHQlkseRzB" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div></br></br></br></br></br></br>

Faraday Future, once seen as a 'Tesla killer,' is said to be in shambles as cash runs low and executives flee

<p class="source"><span>Jeff Dunn/Business Insider.</span></p><p class="caption">One of this year's Roku TV models from TCL.</p>Chinese electronics giant TCL plans to start selling smartphones in the US under its own brand, the latest move in a string of attempts by Chinese phone makers to build a foothold in the West.<p>In an interview with Chris Larson, vice president of TCL North America, Larson said the company plans to launch official TCL phones in the US later this year, though he declined to give a specific time frame.</p><p>TCL already has some standing in the US using the <a href="http://www.alcatel-mobile.com/global-en/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Alcatel brand</a>, with which it sells affordable phones. It acquired similar licensing rights from former mobile titan BlackBerry last December, and has <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackberry-dtek-50-review-2016-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">manufactured a handful</a> of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackberry-keyone-review-new-keyboard-phone-photos-2017-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">BlackBerry-branded phones</a> over the past year.</p><p>The company is also sitting on the rights to the Palm name, another once-popular phone brand, though it has yet to apply that to any devices. More recently, Android Authority, a blog that covers Android, <a href="http://www.androidauthority.com/t-mobile-revvl-t1-770272/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reported that TCL</a> is making a phone that will be branded by T-Mobile. (The company declined to comment on that.)</p><p>TCL already markets a variety of phones under its own brand in China, Europe, and various emerging markets. Some of those phones have been rebranded for sale in the US; last year, for instance, its higher-end TCL 950 phone was made over to become the BlackBerry DTEK60.</p><p class="source"><span>Jeff Dunn/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">TCL manufactured the new BlackBerry KeyOne phone.</p>Exactly what the new TCL phones will look like is unclear, but Larsson broadly said they will feature a "whole new design" compared to the company's existing phones overseas. He also hinted that they would likely fit in the "mid- to upper-mid-range" side of the market, price- and feature-wise, where TCL normally does its business.<p>According to research firm IDC, TCL had the fifth-highest smartphone market share in North America in 2016, with 10.9 million phones shipped through its various brands. Worldwide, it ranked tenth, with 32.9 million units shipments. But the company says its global shipments fell 39% in the first quarter of 2017, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-23/tcl-s-li-urges-trump-to-allow-his-u-s-technology-acquisitions" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">per Bloomberg</a>.</p><h2>A crowded field</h2><p>TCL's phone business is already swimming in a crowded pool of Chinese firms competing for market share in the shadow of Apple and Samsung. The likes of ZTE, OnePlus, LeEco, and Huawei's Honor sub-brand all sell mostly affordable phones through online stores today.</p><p>Some of those have found success - ZTE has made meaningful gains and built relationships with certain carriers (though it <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/article/zte-removed-from-trade-blacklist-by-us-department-of-commerce/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">briefly faced trade sanctions</a> from the US government earlier this year), and OnePlus has built a reputation for quality affordable hardware. Lenovo has some standing through its Motorola legacy brand as well. But others, like LeEco and Honor, have had a harder time making thing work.</p><p>The competition has generally resulted in <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/oneplus-3-huawei-honor-8-chinese-smartphones-2016-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">an increase in quality among affordable phones</a> for consumers, but few of the companies involved have managed to become a widely-known entity in the US. That's not to mention more established names like HTC and Sony, which have fallen further behind in recent years.</p><p class="source"><span>Business Insider/Jeff Dunn</span></p><p class="caption">An Alcatel phone that was also made by TCL.</p>The move would seem to put TCL at odds with its own sub-brands. But past <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-blackberry-phone-mercury-keyboard-ces-features-photos-2017-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">comments from TCL's North American boss Steve Cistulli</a> and <a href="http://mobilesyrup.com/2017/05/03/blackberry-keyone-canada-tcl-smartphone-android/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">other execs</a> have pointed to a strategy where the company tries to use its various brands to cover different niches - the KeyOne is for keyboard lovers, Alcatel phones are for budget buyers, and so on.<h2>Building on the Roku TV</h2><p>TCL's main consumer electronics business is TVs, and it's there where the company does have some standing in the US today. Larsson said the company sold 1.8 million TVs in the US last year, most of which came through its status of manufacturer of the "Roku TV" brand of smart TVs. Worldwide, Larsson said TCL sold "about 20 million" TVs last year - enough to <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/267095/global-market-share-of-lcd-tv-manufacturers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">put it third</a> in global market share, behind Samsung and LG.</p><p>Larsson said the company has tried finding a way to make its phones work more harmoniously with those TVs, but that it's struggled to integrate the two thus far.</p><p>In any case, TCL still has a steep road ahead of it to make inroads with the major mobile carriers, which dominate the purchasing process for most smartphone buyers in the US. Alcatel and BlackBerry have already helped with that to an extent, but most of its partnerships are through those carriers' prepaid brands. </p><p>Nevertheless, the move should give Android users another option to choose from, and further TCL's multi-pronged attack on the US.</p>            <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-galaxy-s8-mobile-phone-review-video-2017-4">REVIEW: Samsung's Galaxy S8 is an incredible phone, but it's far from perfect</a></h3>                                    Please enable Javascript to watch this video

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