Faraday Future Ask Us To Forget Everything We Know About Cars

January 5, 2016. Mark it on your calendar. That’s the date Faraday Future will unwrap its first production prototype and show the world what it has been working for so long in secrecy. To amp up the buzz ahead of the reveal, the company has released a new teaser video that asks viewer to forget everything they know about cars.

It asks questions like:

• “What if the back seat was the new front seat?”
• “What if all those cars parked in driveways had more interesting lives?”

Frankly, I have never been all that concerned about whether my car has an interesting life, any more that I worry that my refrigerator is feeling unfulfilled or my water heater suffers from Oedipal guilt. But Faraday Future is concerned about such things, apparently, and has a plan to make matters better.

On its website, Faraday Future poses existential questions like, “What if there was an electric car that not only helped preserve the environment — it actually made us look forward to the daily commute? What if such a car could redefine our relationship with the automobile itself?” Its self congratulatory rhetoric makes it seem like it is the only company on earth that ever dared look around the corner or beyond next week.

It seems clear that Faraday Future is targeting the brand new, on-demand car sharing segment of the marketplace created by autonomous driving systems. Soon, we will not own cars at all. We will simply summon the car we need when we need it via an app our smartphone. We will pay a fee to use it, then send it on its merry way when we are done. The fee-for-service model will be less expensive than buying a car, making monthly payments, paying taxes and insurance, and fixing it when it breaks down.

On the surface, that argument makes economic sense, particularly for urban dwellers who have access to multiple transportation options and probably don’t have a garage to park a car anyway. It may not work as well for people who live rural or suburban lives. And it doesn’t take into account who will dispose of the empty latte cups the last user left behind or who will plug it in so there’s enough juice in the battery for the next person.

Uber, Apple, Google, NextEV, Atieva and Tesla all have their eyes on the same market, though. What will the Faraday Future car have to offer that vehicles from those other companies do not? On January 5, we may find out.