will faraday future reformat the future or are they fucked?

last week at the international consumer electronics show (ces) in las vegas, nevada, (usa) faraday future introduced their electric car, the ff91.  this video from the dezeen youtube channel is entitled

Faraday Future unveils electric car to rival Tesla

unveil means reveal, present. tesla is considered the leader in the nascent (just starting) electric car market.

at :30 on the video, we can see that the design of the car is

a seamless connection between form and function

seamless means not visible, unnoticeable.  how the car looks and how it works are the same thing.

nick sampson & jja yueting present the ff 91 at an event at the 2017 ces

billionaire investor jia yueteng and faraday future vice president of r&d nick sampson present the ff91 at the 2017 ces

an article at verge.com last month by andrew j. hawkins has this headline

BEHIND THE SCENES AT FARADAY FUTURE, AN ELECTRIC CARMAKER ON THE BRINK OF COLLAPSE

and the teaser under the headline is….

if you’re an investor, you’re fucked.

on the brink of means very close, on the edge. fucked means in serious trouble. according to the article, investors are fucked because a separate entity was created in the cayman islands as the owner of faraday future’s intellecutal property.

nikki minaj's song 'moment for life' contains the lyric "greatness is what we on the brink of"

u would definitely rather be on the brink of greatness than on the brink of collapse. (thequotepedia.com)

ryan felton at jalopnik.com talked with bill strickland, faraday future’s vehicle line executive. strickland compared his experience working at ford and chrysler to his current company and said the looser mentality of a startup has been a breath of fresh air which means a nice change. felton’s article explains

the company has been bogged down by concerns over its financial state, and strickland didn’t shy away from that.

bog down refers to slow movement or problems in general. it is used in present perfect passive voice here (auxiliary have + been + past participle). shy away from is the opposite of confront.

an elvis impersonator prepares to go snorkeling in a bog

the phrasal verb bog down gives the impression of a bog (swamp). this elvis impersonator is preparing to do a little snorkeling in a bog.

nbcnews.com reported on some of the financial concerns.

faraday has been sued for unpaid bills by a handful of suppliers and is struggling to pay others,

sue means take legal action.  it is another example of present perfect passive voice. handful means a few. suppliers provide services or materials for a company. struggle means have problems.

a handful of beans

a handful of beans. do u think faraday future owes that many suppliers? (Neil Palmer-CIAT)

nbcnews.com also talks about what ryan felton refers to as the elephant in the room (the very obvious issue that nobody wants to talk about) in his jalopnik.com article.

a cash shortfall forced faraday to halt work on the $1 billion assembly plant it is building in the desert north of las vegas.

shortfall means not having enough. halt means stop. this clip from 22 jump street uses the expression elephant in the room.  what is the elephant in the room that ice cube is talking about?

according to the article nick sampson, faraday’s senior vice president of r&d (research and development), admits to rough (difficult) moments for the company but told reporters that work on the assembly plant will resume (start again) “very soon”.

fun english practice :) richyrocks english on youtube

nbc points out (mentions) that even if construction does resume, there are plenty (more than enough) of skeptics (doubters). in fact, the headline of the article says

Faraday Future: Tesla Competitor or Just an Also-Ran?

an also-ran is a non-factor, an insignificant competitor.

faraday future officials don’t see it that way though. they insist they will come through (succeed, win), and sampson promises they will  “reformat the future”.

 

auto producer nissan also promises an alternative future, but not a complete reformat.

alexander kalogianni at digitaltrends.com was not impressed with faraday’s presentation at ces, as evidenced in the headline of his article

Faraday Future needs to start making cars, and stop stroking its own ego

and commentary from his article

faraday’s presentation felt like little more than chest-thumping.

stroking an ego means flattering, saying nice things. chest thumping is a gesture of pride or boasting. it’s a metaphor.  this video for a track by eclectic method shows a lot of literal chest thumping in the movie wolf of wall street

another article by ryan felton on jalopnik.com documents the underwhelming performance of the ff 91 parking itself on stage when presented by sampson and billionaire entrepreneur jia yueting, faraday’s principal investor. but in the final paragraph felton admits

granted, the lidar-equipped ff 91 boasts some of the most impressive autonomous functions we’ve seen on a car to date, if they (and the car itself) can go to production.

granted concedes a pointlidar stands for light detection and ranging. the ff91 uses lidar to park itself.  boasts in this context means has in reference to a fantastic feature.

the ff 91

what’s your opinion about self-driving cars? how far into the future do u think faraday future will survive? share your thoughts under leave a reply


 

 

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