Faraday Future Slides On Signaling Need For Funds To Start Production

Shares of Faraday Future Intelligent Electric tumbled 21% premarket on Friday after the company unveiled production plans for its much-delayed luxury electric car that hinged on securing additional financing.

The company is in talks with new and existing investors to raise the $150 million to $170 million in capital needed to start production in March and deliveries a month later of the FF 91 Futurist, Faraday disclosed on Thursday.

The company is one of the many EV startups struggling to launch its products as a bleak global growth outlook and a funding squeeze dented production schedules and compounded losses.

The Los Angeles-based company's shares have tanked more than 90% this year and it had $22.5 million in cash as of Nov. 30, down from $31.76 million at the end of the third quarter.

"We've implemented a number of cash conservation measures that have significantly reduced our spending to core items that are essential to delivering the FF 91 Futurist," interim Chief Financial Officer Yun Han said on Thursday.

The company, which said it required investors to approve an increase in the number of shares to secure the financing, is also grappling with top-level changes.

Last month, the board appointed Faraday Future's China Chief Executive Xuefeng Chen as its global CEO after Carsten Breitfeld was asked to resign.

Meanwhile, the company said the latest generation of its car had longer range and better acceleration than rivals such as Tesla Inc's Model X, Mercedes Benz Maybach S and Rolls Royce Cullinan.

(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)