Torrance-based electric car maker Faraday Future has inked a deal on a 1 million-square-foot manufacturing facility in the Central Valley, the company announced in August.
The news comes a month after Faraday Future scrapped its plans for a $1 billion Nevada manufacturing plant. The new manufacturing location is in Hanford, about 200 miles north of Los Angeles, near Fresno.
The company plans to ramp up its activity at the factory in early 2018 after the current tenants move out in late November. It said it’s striving to deliver its first production vehicle, the FF 91, by the end of next year. The facility will employ about 1,300 people once it’s up and running, the company said.
“Our new production facility is the latest demonstration of our commitment to getting FF 91 on the road by the end of 2018,” Dag Reckhorn, Faraday Future’s vice president of global manufacturing, said in a statement. “Despite significant head winds on the path ahead of us, we are laser-focused on that one key milestone.”
The automaker’s future looked uncertain after its main backer, Jia Yueting, chief executive of Chinese conglomerate LeEco, stepped down in May amid layoffs and missed payments to suppliers.
The Wall Street Journal reported Faraday had pledged its corporate headquarters as collateral after receiving a $14 million rescue loan from New York investment firm Innovatus Capital Partners.
The company also has faced a trademark infringement lawsuit over its name.