There are problems with Jia Yueting's leadership. Is this the reason why Faraday Future is so controversial?

Carsten Breitfeld, who led the development of the BMW i8 plug-in hybrid, has become a focal point in the global electric vehicle industry. Two months ago, he jumped from the Chinese electric vehicle startup Byton to another startup Faraday Future and became its CEO. Today, at the Los Angeles Auto Show, Breitfeld gave us the latest news about Faraday.

Breifeld said Faraday Future faces two major obstacles. The first is a lack of confidence in the company's ability to execute its plans. The second is leadership issues from its founder, Jia Yueting.

Breitfeld said the first problem had been solved because he brought in a new leadership team shortly after taking over as CEO of the company.

At the same time, Jia Yueting also filed for personal bankruptcy in October, separating his personal finances from the company's finances, and resigned as CEO. Jia Yueting's next job will be to focus on the connectivity and user experience of FF cars, aiming to make it a "third living space" for people.

Breitfeld sought to distinguish Faraday Future from competitors that have been hyped in the media. Instead, he said, Faraday Future has invested in technologies that he said are more advanced but not well known outside the company.

Faraday Future's current total investment is close to $2 billion.

“To achieve new mobility, you need two technologies. You need car-making technology, and it has to be an electric powertrain car. The IP developed by Faraday is the most advanced and best electric drivetrain in the industry,” Breitfeld boldly declared. “I’m not just talking about a startup now. If you’re talking about power density, battery technology, and the latest gold technology, you can compare FF cars to Audi, even BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche.”

Breitfeld is currently in fundraising mode. He said the investment community knows that the auto industry will transform into a mobility services provider. "And traditional automakers won't do that," he said.
Analysts say that this does sound like something a CEO in "funding mode" would say, but FF's track record has been poor. We previously noted that FF does have a strong engineering team and they also seem to have developed some interesting powertrain technologies, such as their power inverter, but that was three years ago and most of the original engineers have left the company.

That doesn’t mean their work isn’t still useful, but over the past three years, while the rest of the industry has made incremental progress, Faraday Future has been plagued by controversy and funding shortfalls.