NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. (AP) – Upstart electric car company Faraday Future hopes to have its first vehicles rolling off the assembly line in 2018, a company executive said Wednesday, as officials marked the start of construction on a planned $1 billion Las Vegas-area production plant.
“Our aim is to complete a program that would normally take four years and do it in half the time, while still doing it right,” Dag Reckhorn, Faraday Future global manufacturing vice president, said in a statement released as Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, company and local officials gathered at the North Las Vegas site.
Nevada has pledged up to up to $335 million worth of incentives toward the project, which Gardena, California-based Faraday promises will employ some 4,500 people over the next decade.
The company, backed by Chinese entrepreneur Jia Yueting, currently has about 700 employees in the U.S. It unveiled a concept car in January, but hasn’t put a vehicle on the market.
Nevada lawmakers held a special session in December, just weeks after Sandoval unveiled and endorsed the project, to promise $215 million in tax breaks and $120 million in infrastructure improvements.