Sun Hongbin secretly inspected LeEco's US factory and may jointly invest $1.1 billion

Recently, Sunac China Chairman Sun Hongbin visited the office areas of electric car startup Faraday in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley, as well as the company's factory under construction in Las Vegas. He may be interested in joining forces with Lenovo to invest approximately US$1.1 billion in Faraday to support the research and development and production of the company's first electric car FF91.

According to a person familiar with the matter, although Sun Hongbin publicly stated that he would not touch businesses that he "did not understand" such as electric vehicles after investing 16.8 billion yuan in LeTV at the beginning of this year, Faraday began to become interested in the project after it released its first electric car FF91 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this year.

In April, Sun Hongbin and Lenovo's team visited Faraday's offices in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley to inspect the overall progress of the FF91 project and the construction of the Las Vegas factory. According to a person familiar with the matter who told Tencent Technology, Sun Hongbin was "generally satisfied" with the FF91 project and had formed a preliminary investment intention.

It is understood that the investment intention reached this time is about 1.1 billion US dollars, which is only used for the research and development, production and other purposes related to the Faraday FF91 car, and the funds may be in place in July this year. The insider said that this investment has nothing to do with the LeTV car project carried out by LeTV in China.

Jia Yueting, the founder of LeTV, is the main investor in the electric car startup Faraday Future. At this year's Consumer Electronics Show, Faraday Future launched its first electric car, the FF91, which caused a sensation at home and abroad due to its excellent acceleration performance and partial automatic parking functions. The company said that after the reservations were opened, the number of reservations exceeded 64,000 in 36 hours.

But then, due to LeTV's financial difficulties, the outside world began to worry about the Faraday electric car project, especially the factory under construction in Las Vegas, USA, which was repeatedly reported to have stopped work due to arrears.

Nick Sampson, senior vice president of Faraday Future (configuration, pictures, inquiries), exclusively responded to Tencent Technology in mid-January this year that the Nevada factory had completed the first phase of work in December, and preparations for the second phase were underway, and the construction of the second phase was about to start. He also emphasized that FF91 "will be delivered in 2018."

According to his statement at the time, FF's factory construction in Nevada was about to enter the next stage of factory building construction, but he has not made a detailed response as to when the second phase of factory construction was planned to be completed.

Subsequently, LeTV received an investment of 16.8 billion yuan from Sunac China, which temporarily alleviated its financial difficulties. However, Sunac China Chairman Sun Hongbin emphasized at the press conference on the day of the financing news that the investment was in LeTV's non-automotive business assets.

Faraday's financial constraints have not been resolved. In March, it was reported that LeEco North America would sell the nearly 50-acre plot of land in Silicon Valley that it had just purchased from Yahoo last year for US$260 million to cope with its increasingly tight financial problems.

This office area is Faraday's office in Silicon Valley, and its staff are mainly engaged in the research and development of autonomous driving, vehicle networking and other related technologies.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.