Best printers for Home

Best Mixer Grinder

Best wired Earphones

Best 43 Inch TV in India

Best Wi Fi Routers

Best Home Theatre in India

Smart Watch under 5000

Best Laptops for Education

Best Laptop for Students

<br />
<br /> <keyword id="3205550" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="LeEco">LeEco</keyword> has swiftly implemented its upgraded strategy by appointing a new top executive for <keyword id="68550" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="asia-pacific">Asia-Pacific</keyword> region while receiving major financial support from investors.<br />
<br /> Mr. <keyword id="3849042" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Anthony-Gao">Anthony Gao</keyword> (<keyword id="3849326" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Gao-Jun">Gao Jun</keyword>) will assume the position of President of <keyword id="3849329" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="leeco-apac">LeEco APAC</keyword>, concurrently the Chief Executive Officer of LeEco <keyword id="24349" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Hong-Kong">Hong Kong</keyword>. Responsible for operational management and meeting various business targets, <keyword id="16601" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Gao">Gao</keyword> will report directly to Mr. YT Jia, Founder, and CEO of <keyword id="3849043" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="LeEco-Global">LeEco Global</keyword>.<br />
<br /> Mr. Gao has extensive experience in the technology industry. Before joining LeEco, Gao spent 17 years in <keyword id="6357456" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Huawei">Huawei</keyword> in various senior executive positions including CEO of <keyword id="631575" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Huawei-Device">Huawei Device</keyword> in China, President of <keyword id="3849328" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="global-sales-and-technical-service-department">Global Sales and Technical Service Department</keyword>, and President of <keyword id="3849330" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="global-strategy-and-marketing-department">Global Strategy and Marketing Department</keyword>. <br /> Gao currently heads LeEco’s VR and AR company as well as <keyword id="224533" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="MFL">MFL</keyword> (Made for LeEco), LeEco’s initiative for open smart hardware ecosystem. His leadership in these businesses will remain.<br />
	<br />
	On the financing front, LeEco has secured a US$600 million of funding from major Chinese institutional investors today. The first half of the funding will be transferred to LeEco within this November and will support LeEco Global and LeEco’s electric vehicle business.<br />
	<br />
	LeEco is undergoing a series of strategic and organizational upgrades as it enters the second phase of its strategy, where the focus shifted from aggressive expansion to positive and sustainable growth and acquisition of high-value user.<br />
	<br /> “Although there are doubts surrounding LeEco, true innovative entrepreneurs can see the investment value of LeEco and its enormous growth potential in the future,” said <keyword id="3849327" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="hank-liu-hong">Hank Liu Hong</keyword>, Co-Founder and Vice Chairman of LeEco.

LeEco gets new APAC President and secures US$600 million new funding

<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 />

<p class="source"><span>Faraday Future</span></p><p class="caption">Stefan Krause</p>Faraday Future, the startup vying to put its electric vehicles on the road in the next two years, has a new plan.<p>The company was founded in 2014 and has faced money troubles, supplier lawsuits, and high-profile executive departures ever since. Earlier this year executives told Business Insider that it's <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/faraday-future-money-problems-electric-car-nevada-sources-2017-1">in shambles</a>, lacking funding and leadership.<br /><br />A much-touted plant in Nevada still hasn't emerged from the ground, and the unveiling of its new vehicle earlier this year was seen as a public relations disaster. Now, as Faraday tries to turn things around, it is hoping to raise more than $1 billion from new investors.</p><p>"We are talking to investors, pre-marketing, providing information. We've had a lot of due-diligence done in Gardena," said Stefan Krause, the new chief financial officer Faraday <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/faraday-future-new-cfo-stefan-krause-2017-3">brought on in March.</a> Gardena is Faraday's headquarters in the South Bay region of Los Angeles. "Within the process it's going quite well. I'm quite satisfied." The funds, Krause says, would let Faraday deploy a two-year plan with five major goals:</p><ul><li>Start construction on its North Las Vegas, Nevada, factory.</li><li>Continue development on its first vehicle, the FF91.</li><li>Engineer and design its sister brand, the LeSEE.</li><li>Support the development of a factory in China.</li><li>Prepare its sales infrastructure in the US.</li></ul><p class="source"><span>Ethan Miller/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">Faraday Future's FF 91 prototype electric crossover vehicle is unveiled during a press event for CES 2017.</p><p>Krause says he's mostly pitching private individuals. The company has been notoriously secretive about its funding sources. Up until now, it's only publicly known investor was Jia Yueting, the CEO of Chinese tech giant, LeEco - which itself is struggling financially.</p><p>Jia, who goes by YT, acknowledged LeEco's financial woes last fall and in the first half of 2017, LeEco saw its US workforce shrink dramatically. The company, known in some circles as the "Netflix of China," recently <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/leeco-cash-crunch-silicon-valley-property-faraday-future-2017-3">unloaded some property in Silicon Valley</a> amid the cash crunch.</p><p class="source"><span>Ethan Miller/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">LeEco Founder and CEO YT Jia.</p>The connection is not lost on Krause, who told Business Insider that despite LeEco's financial turmoil, Faraday Future is still expected to receive funding from YT while Faraday rounds up new investors.<p>YT, who stepped down as CEO from the publicly traded, Beijing-based Leshi Internet Information and Technology <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-jia-yueting-steps-down-as-ceo-of-troubled-leshi-remains-chairman-2017-5">last week</a>, is also divesting from a number of startups in which he has a stake, to help round up more cash.</p><p>"The initial funds will come from YT, through his own divestments of some of his companies," Krause said. "So, that is money we are expecting in July and we will expect the funds from the first tranche of $500 million as we go into the third quarter," he said.</p><p>Asked how many investors Faraday would need to reach $1 billion, he said, "We need around 10 to 15, but I cannot exclude that there might be a Chinese investor coming with a larger amount of money."</p><p>Faraday's spokespeople later emphasized it could receive a larger cash infusion from any of its potential investors.</p><p>Krause also suggested that the company has caught the attention of a "significant" automaker that could acquire a stake in the company, but declined to elaborate on what that means.</p><p>For his part, Krause said he is confident in Faraday Future's prospects and emphasized in an earlier conversation with Business Insider the company's efforts to get its financial affairs in the order for the long haul. Audits of the company's books have been completed for 2014 and 2015, and an audit of 2016's books is underway.</p><p>There are still plenty of unknowns. Faraday needs to secure that much-needed investor cash, keep paying its bills, and overcome negative public perceptions that have tarnished its name since the company first emerged from stealth mode in January 2016.<br /><br />That says nothing of actually getting down to the work of building a car that it can sell.</p>            <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-bottom-line-henry-blodget-jamie-dimon-aberdeen-trillion-dollar-apple-iron-man-2017-5">THE BOTTOM LINE: Jamie Dimon and trillion dollar Apple</a></h3>                                    Please enable Javascript to watch this video

Faraday Future is looking for $1 billion as it seeks to go from hobbled startup to successful carmaker

<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

<ul><li><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Faraday Future</span></p><p class="caption">Faraday Future CFO Stefan Krause.</p></div><p></p></div></div><strong>Cash-strapped electric-car startup Faraday Future will name CFO Stefan Krause as chief operating officer, in an effort to turn the stalled company around.</strong></li><li><strong>Faraday's sole known investor, LeEco founder Jia Yueting, will be named the chairman of Faraday's global executive committee.</strong></li><li><strong>The company is said to be close to securing a manufacturing facility in California after it announced last month that it was abandoning its $1 billion factory project in Nevada.</strong></li></ul><p>Faraday Future, the electric-car startup that set out to challenge Tesla with its own electric, self-driving SUV, is looking for a fresh start after a tumultuous year of executive departures, a cash shortage and lawsuits from its suppliers.</p><p>To that end, the Los Angeles-based firm plans to shake up its executive ranks, starting at the near-top. Newly hired CFO Stefan Krause, a veteran of BMW and Deutsche Bank, will also serve as COO and CMO at Faraday, according to people with knowledge of the pending announcement.</p><p>As COO, Krause will oversee strategic business decisions for Faraday until an official CEO is named, the people said. Faraday has no one operating in that role at this time. Krause will direct the company's marketing arm as CMO on a temporary basis until a permanent marketing officer is appointed.</p><p>The company last month brought on BMW's former head of electric vehicles, Ulrich Kranz, as chief technology officer.</p><p>Faraday's sole known investor, Jia Yueting, will be named chairman of the company's global executive committee, marking the first time he will assume an official role at Faraday Future. Jia is the founder of the Beijing-based electronics company, LeEco, which has been bleeding cash and laying off employees worldwide in recent months.</p><p>Unpaid loan payments prompted a Chinese court to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/leeco-jia-yueting-assets-frozen-amid-cash-crunch-2017-7">impose a three-year freeze on $182 million in assets</a> tied to Jia in July. The same month, <a href="http://variety.com/2017/biz/asia/court-asset-freeze-leeco-jia-yueting-1202512078/">an additional $37.2 million of Jia's assets were frozen</a> for the same period. Jia <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-jia-yueting-steps-down-as-ceo-of-troubled-leshi-remains-chairman-2017-5">resigned as CEO</a> of LeEco's publicly listed arm, Leshi Internet Information and Technology, in May, citing cash problems at his non-publicly traded businesses that he said were "having a huge impact on operations."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Bryan Logan/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">A view of Faraday Future's planned factory in North Las Vegas, Nevada.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Substitute factory in the works</h2><p>According to people with direct knowledge of Faraday Future's plans, the company is close to securing a substitute manufacturing site in California. The company on July 10 said it was <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/faraday-future-latest-news-cash-flow-crisis-forces-company-to-leave-north-las-vegas-factory-2017-7">pulling out of its proposed factory project in North Las Vegas, Nevada</a> as its funds dried up.</p><p>Faraday had purchased some 900 acres in the Nevada desert last year, where it intended to build a massive assembly plant for its electric vehicle, the FF91, and create about 4,500 jobs in the area.</p><p>"We are in a precarious situation right now," a senior-level Faraday Future employee told Business Insider before the announcement. "The generous funding we had in the past is no longer here."</p><p>It is unclear what resources Faraday is using for the substitute manufacturing facility it wants to secure in California. CFO Stefan Krause told Business Insider last month that his initial attempts to round up $1 billion from about 35 global investors were unsuccessful.</p><p>Krause suggested, however, that some potential financiers were still on the fence.</p><p>"Some of them would like to see a factory and would like to see us moving a little bit further down the road," Krause told Business Insider. "We will secure an existing facility that we can lease or buy at a low cost and then bring in our equipment and be faster to market with the FF91," Krause said, adding that Faraday had already purchased some of the equipment for the factory that was planned for North Las Vegas.</p><h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Ethan Miller/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">LeEco Founder YT Jia unveils Faraday Future's FF 91 prototype electric crossover vehicle</p></div><p></p></div></div>An uncertain future</h2><p>Lots of questions remain. Faraday officials declined to specify how it intends to pay for a substitute assembly plant, and there is still the matter of continuing development on the FF91, which has been in beta-testing for some time, but is still far from production-ready.</p><p>For his part, Jia has said he would focus his attention entirely on his auto business, even as LeEco wobbles in the background.</p><p>"Please give LeEco some time, please give LeEco car some time," <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-leeco-management-idUSKBN19R0B8?il=0">Jia wrote in a post on China's biggest social-media website</a> last month. "We will pay back creditors, suppliers and any other debts."</p><p>He promised to dive headfirst into the car business with Faraday Future, but critics have said the capital-intensive endeavor is the source of his troubles. Still, Jia remained undeterred: "Our dream to revolutionize the auto industry cannot be defeated," he said.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-price-soar-20000-tom-lee-fundstrat-gold-2017-7">TOP STRATEGIST: Bitcoin will soar to over $20,000 by cannibalizing gold</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="U4Z2d3YjE6Y2Id8QBgiAVo1YkJnVbjNB" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Electric-car startup Faraday Future shakes up its executive ranks amid scramble for cash

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Faraday Future's newly unveiled production car appeared to malfunction after it was unveiled at an event in Las Vegas Tuesday night.<p>The electric-car startup hosted an event to show off the car - named FF91 - and some of its features, which includes an ability to park itself.</p><p>At one point, Nick Sampson, the company's senior vice president of research, development, and engineering, was on stage with Faraday Future's main investor, LeEco chairman Jia Yueting. Sampson asked Jia to press a button on the car to prompt the "auto valet park" feature.</p><p>Nothing happened.</p><p>"OK, it seems like it's a little bit lazy tonight," Sampson said of the car, before inviting Jia to give some remarks about the company.</p><p>After Jia's remarks, the stage lights were dimmed and Sampson had another go at getting the car to move. Another long pause followed.</p><p>"As a new baby, she's often very, very timid," Sampson quipped.</p><p>Moments later, the vehicle inched slowly across the stage.</p><p>The Verge <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/4/14162994/faraday-future-malfunction-self-park-ces-2017">reported</a> that Sampson commented on the apparent glitch after the event: "It's a complex situation ... We knew there were technical challenges. If you look up at the roof of this building, there's a lot of structure up there that inhibits some of the signals the car needs to be able to self-drive."</p><p>Earlier in the presentation, a video of the car apparently navigating a parking lot was shown. In the video, the car eventually finds a spot and backs itself in, ostensibly without any driver input.</p><h2>Watch the moment below, starting at the 1:12:30 mark:</h2><div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-rival-faraday-future-debuts-ff-91-ff91-2017-1">Watch Tesla rival Faraday Future debut its first car by having it back itself into an empty parking spot</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="p3ZTJxODE63O_lFmXSLN8ewh-791G7NB" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Faraday Future's production car appeared to malfunction during its big debut

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></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><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Faraday Future, the struggling tech startup that seeks to build autonomous, electric vehicles is bringing on a Deutsche Bank and BMW veteran to help the company sort out its finances.</p><p>Faraday announced Stefan Krause's hiring in a press release this week.</p><p>Krause will serve as global chief financial officer for Faraday Future, taking charge of Faraday's corporate finance division and handling investor relations and capital management - areas in which Faraday has struggled in the last year.</p><p>The Southern California-based upstart has been plagued with executive departures and dwindling bank accounts in recent months. The turmoil led to lots of bad press for Faraday leading up to its appearance at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January.</p><p>The event unfolded under the shadow of multimillion dollar lawsuits from some of Faraday's suppliers and led to a few embarrassing moments for company honchos who were showcasing the company's first vehicle, the FF91.</p><p>Current and former employees told Busines Insider at the time that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/faraday-future-money-problems-electric-car-nevada-sources-2017-1">Faraday's finances were on the brink</a>."If CES doesn't bring in fresh investors, it's over between February and May," one source close to the company said at the time.</p><p>Jia Yueting, Faraday's only publicly known investor is a tech billionaire who heads the Chinese electronics company LeEco. Jia has spoken of his own money problems as recently as October.</p><p>Some of Faraday's money troubles have been blamed on the company's previous chief financial officer, Chaoying Deng. Chaoying remains at Faraday as the director of finance. She was the company's first CEO of record and also acted as the company's president and treasurer for a time. Sources close to the company suggested to Business Insider previously that Faraday's books fell into disarray under her leadership.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>A Faraday Future spokesman told Business Insider Friday that Chaoying would now report to Krause.</p><p>Krause was once a target of a tax-evasion investigation in the early 2000s. He was one of several Deutsche Bank executives who came under scrutiny in a case that dated back to 2010. The allegations involved people suspected of trying to avoid sales tax on the trading of carbon tax certificates, <a href="https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/12/12/top-deutsche-bank-executives-ensnared-by-tax-evasion-inquiry/">The New York Times reported in 2012</a>.</p><p>Law-enforcement officials raided Deutsche Bank offices during the inquiry. Krause and other executives who were being investigated denied any wrongdoing.</p><p>Faraday Future touted Krause's background in corporate fundraising. He is credited with helping raise $22 billion in capital during his time at Deutsche Bank between 2008 and 2015.</p><p>Fundraising is an important next-step for Faraday Future as it tries to court new sources of cash to fund it many initiatives. Faraday's stalled factory project awaits a restart in North Las Vegas, Nevada, the FF91 needs to be readied for production and, importantly, Faraday's bills need to be paid.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/technologies-future-2030-world-economic-forum-tech-video-2017-2">7 amazing technologies we'll see by 2030</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="gyZHdzOTE6-7W7ygtgWICrMsqtn8Zv54" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Cash-strapped electric-car startup Faraday Future is bringing in a BMW veteran to get its finances in order

<ul><li><p class="source"><span>Bryan Logan/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">A view of Faraday Future's planned factory site in northern Las Vegas.</p><strong>Faraday Future is scrapping plans for a 1-million-square-foot assembly plant in Nevada amid a deepening cash crunch, and it is now looking for an existing facility to build its first car, the FF91.</strong></li><li><strong>A Chinese court reportedly froze billions of dollars in assets belonging to Faraday's owner, Jia Yueting, who is the chairman of a Beijing electronics company that is mired in its own cash crisis.</strong></li><li><strong>Faraday is expected to slow down operations at its Los Angeles-based headquarters, but the company says no layoffs are planned in the near term.</strong></li></ul><p>SAN FRANCISCO - Faraday Future, the California startup that set out to dethrone Tesla in the electric-car business with ambitious plans to build a self-driving, 1,000-horsepower entertainment hub on wheels, is officially in trouble.</p><p>The company, at least for now, is abandoning one of its cornerstone projects, a 1-million-square-foot assembly plant in North Las Vegas, it announced on Monday. Business Insider has also learned that the company is significantly pulling back on its operations at its Los Angeles-area headquarters amid a deepening cash crunch.</p><p>"We are in a precarious situation right now," a senior-level Faraday Future employee told Business Insider. "The generous funding we had in the past is no longer here."</p><p>The developments represent a big change in Faraday's public posture. Though reports of cash shortages and internal strife have circulated for months, the company had continued to insist that it was on track to build the Nevada plant - itself a scaled-down version of a planned 3-million-square-foot facility - and that its electric SUV was on track to hit the market by the end of 2018.</p><p>Though it still doesn't have a production-ready car, Faraday has frequently sought to grab public attention with high-profile presentations and bold claims about the capability of its technology.</p><p class="source"><span>Bryan Logan/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">A Faraday Future FF91 beta vehicle.</p>Monday's news is an acknowledgment that things aren't going as well as the company had hoped. It also suggests that efforts to raise new funding, to ease dependence on its Chinese billionaire backer, failed - at least for now.<p>"We at Faraday Future are significantly shifting our business strategy to position the company as the leader in user-ship personal mobility - a vehicle usage model that reimagines the way users access mobility," Faraday Future said Monday in a statement.</p><p>"As a result of this shift in direction, we are in the process of identifying a manufacturing facility that presents a faster path to start-of-production and aligns with future strategic options.</p><p>"Accordingly, we have decided to put a hold on our factory at the APEX site in North Las Vegas. As the land owner, we remain committed to the buildout of the APEX site for long-term vehicle manufacturing and firmly believe North Las Vegas is an ideal place for us to be."</p><p>Current Faraday employees told Business Insider the company would search for an existing facility in either California or Nevada rather than build its own factory at the North Las Vegas site, which they said would require $80 million to $100 million the company did not have.</p><p>Day-to-day operations at Faraday's Gardena, California, headquarters will continue, but these people said some belt-tightening was required. No layoffs are planned in the near term, but a dearth of financial resources means the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/faraday-future-ff91-details-pictures-facts-specs-2017-5">development of the company's FF91 electric SUV</a> is expected to slow down as well.</p><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Jason Lee</span></p><p class="caption">LeEco's chairman, Jia Yueting.</p><h2>Who's paying for Faraday?</h2><p>Faraday relies heavily on its owner, Jia Yueting, the founder of the Beijing-based tech giant LeEco, which is having cash-flow problems of its own.</p><p>Unpaid loans recently prompted a Chinese court <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/leeco-jia-yueting-assets-frozen-amid-cash-crunch-2017-7">to freeze $182 million in assets tied to Jia, his wife, and several affiliates</a>, according to reports in The New York Times and Xinhua. Courts also <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/leeco-founders-assets-shares-frozen-over-missed-interest-payment-1499180269">imposed a three-year freeze on Jia's roughly $2.3 billion stake</a> in a publicly listed arm of his empire, Leshi Internet Information &amp; Technology.</p><p>Trading in Leshi was suspended in April for a restructuring review - one of several suspensions for the stock in the past 12 months.</p><p>Faraday's recently hired chief financial officer, Stefan Krause, had set out to corral new investors for Faraday in recent weeks to stave off fallout from Jia's cash crisis. Krause told Business Insider in a May interview that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/faraday-future-leeco-news-1-billion-series-a-details-2017-5">he had hoped to round up $1 billion</a> in a series A round of funding. His worldwide blitz took him 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 factory off the ground and move the FF91 closer to production.</p><p>Faraday employees with knowledge of the talks told Business Insider the endeavor was unsuccessful because of the uncertainty surrounding Jia and LeEco.</p><p>"The noise around him really makes it difficult to find investors right now," one senior-level employee said of Jia. "There's a lot of interest - the story sells very well - but his situation makes them all stand on the sidelines and they're not really willing to provide the money."</p><p class="source"><span>Ethan Miller/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">Jia with Faraday Future's vice president of design, Richard Kim, and senior vice president of research and development and engineering, Nick Sampson.</p><h2>Expanding too quickly, setting off alarms</h2><p>Jia, who goes by the nickname YT, has personally backed Faraday since the company was founded in 2014, but the blows the billionaire's financial portfolio has taken in the past year have created problems throughout his sprawling empire.</p><p>LeEco sought to expand rapidly in the US last year, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/leeco-opens-new-us-headquarters-in-silicon-valley-2016-4">opening new offices in San Jose, California,</a> with plans for a larger campus to be built on some 50 acres the company bought from Yahoo. LeEco also planned to buy the TV-maker Vizio for $2 billion. Separately, Faraday bought 900 acres of land in North Las Vegas for its inaugural factory and made deals with the San Francisco Bay Area city of Vallejo to secure property for a second facility.</p><p>All of those plans were canceled. LeEco <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/leeco-cash-crunch-silicon-valley-property-faraday-future-2017-3">sold off the Yahoo property</a> less than a year after the purchase, laid off 70% of its US workforce, and dropped the $2 billion Vizio deal. Construction was halted at Faraday's North Las Vegas site before any foundation was laid, and suppliers began suing Faraday over unpaid bills.</p><p class="source"><span>Bryan Logan/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">The planned Faraday Future factory site in Las Vegas seen January 15.</p><p>More than $2 billion in fresh investment from a Chinese real-estate business late last year did little to slow LeEco's bleeding, and several high-profile executives left Faraday in a hurry. A <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/faraday-future-car-lawsuit-the-mill-group-money-problems-2017-1">handful</a> of <a href="http://jalopnik.com/faraday-future-hit-with-10-million-lawsuit-for-unpaid-1789987911">Faraday's suppliers</a> sued the company for millions, claiming they were not paid. And creditors <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/business/dealbook/china-finance-leeco-debt-shadow-banking.html">occupied LeEco's Beijing offices for a week</a> in June, demanding payment.</p><p>Jia acknowledged last fall that LeEco expanded too quickly and required more cash than the company anticipated. Jia <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-leeco-management-idUSKBN19R0B8?il=0">wrote a public plea for leniency</a> on China's biggest social-media site, Weibo, last week, promising to repay his debts while also saying he would throw all of his energy into his electric-car business.</p><p>"Please give LeEco some time, please give LeEco car some time," Jia wrote. "We will pay back creditors, suppliers and any other debts." Jia told stakeholders that his empire's financial troubles were "more severe than we expected" and said the company "made some mistakes" in allocating its funds.</p><p>He promised to dive headfirst into the car business with Faraday Future, but critics have said the capital-intensive endeavor is what caused his troubles.</p><p class="source"><span>Ethan Miller/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">The Faraday Future FF91 after it was unveiled during a press event for CES 2017 in Las Vegas on January 3.</p><h2>Faraday's fight to survive</h2><p>Krause said Faraday would search for an existing facility to build its FF91 self-driving cars once they were ready for production. For the Deutsche Bank and BMW veteran, the rationale is straightforward: An operational factory is the key to new investor cash.</p><p>"Some of them would like to see a factory and would like to see us moving a little bit further down the road," Krause told Business Insider in a phone interview last week. "We will secure an existing facility that we can lease or buy at a low cost and then bring in our equipment and be faster to market with the FF91," Krause said, adding that Faraday had already purchased some of the equipment for the factory that was planned for North Las Vegas.</p><p>But the startup still faces a dire outlook in the short term. The company is slowing down development of the FF91, which has been undergoing beta testing for months. Faraday has sought to keep some positive buzz going, participating last month in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, <a href="https://electrek.co/2017/06/26/faraday-future-sets-new-production-ev-record-at-pikes-peak-beating-last-years-tesla-p90d-by-20-seconds/">where it beat a Tesla Model S P90D</a> in a 12-mile high-altitude race in Colorado Springs, Colorado.</p><p>Still, publicity stunts have done little to deflect the real concern that Faraday's days may be numbered. The company says that, while it no longer has access to generous funding through Jia, it is still able to cover payroll for its roughly 1,000 employees. Faraday executives declined to clarify what the company spent to maintain staffing and routine operations.</p><p>Exhibiting the same kind of dogged determination of its owner, Faraday Future insists it will push forward. Jia has other financial holdings in the US, including some real estate, which could be liquidated for cash. And the acreage Faraday owns in North Las Vegas could also be sold to replenish its reserves.</p><p>It is unclear how long Faraday can hobble into the future with its visions of immersive self-driving, electric transport, but, at least for now, the company remains intent to fight a while longer.</p><p class="tagline">Get the latest Tesla stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/TSLA-Quote"> <strong>here.</strong></a></p>            <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/richard-greenfield-btig-bullish-on-twitter-favorite-2017-6">RICHARD GREENFIELD: I am bullish on Twitter and would be shocked if it wasn't bought within two years</a></h3>                                    Please enable Javascript to watch this video

You Searched For "yt jia founder" and got 11 results

LeEco gets new APAC President and secures US$600 million new funding

BI India Bureau

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

Nazia Bijal

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

Nazia Bijal

Faraday Future is looking for $1 billion as it seeks to go from hobbled startup to successful carmaker

Bryan Logan

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

Bryan Logan

Electric-car startup Faraday Future shakes up its executive ranks amid scramble for cash

Bryan Logan

Faraday Future's production car appeared to malfunction during its big debut

Bryan Logan

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

Nazia Bijal

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

Bryan Logan

Cash-strapped electric-car startup Faraday Future is bringing in a BMW veteran to get its finances in order

Bryan Logan

'We are in a precarious situation': The electric-car startup Faraday Future is scrapping its big Nevada factory as its cash crisis deepens

Bryan Logan

Popular Keywords

Buying Guides