Secretive electric car company Faraday Future is going to take part in this year's Pikes Peak International Hill Climb competition in order to test its first product car's capabilities and to bring more transparency to its brand.
For a car company yet to officially unveil a single production model, Faraday Future has had a huge amount of media attention in the past two years. The US-based, Chinese-backed startup broke onto the scene at CES 2016 where it unveiled a conceptual 1000hp electric hyper car and followed it up 12 months later by showcasing the FF91. This, according to the company, would be going on sale and would be capable of covering the 0-60mph dash quicker than any car on the road today.
However, between the two presentations, many questions have been raised about the company's financial health and, crucially, about its abilities to take its concepts and convert them into consumer-facing cars in 2018.
In an attempt to answer its critics, and to demonstrate that its engineering works in the real world, the company is going to enter this year's Pikes Peak Hill Climb -- an unrelenting mountain road in the US city of Colorado Springs that offers up 156 turns and an average gradient of 7% over its 12.42-mile length.
"The hill climb on Pikes Peak serves as the ideal setting to further develop the electric propulsion system and supporting thermal systems of FF 91," said Nick Sampson, Senior Vice President of Research and Development.
The current record time for a non-modified production electric car is held by Blake Fuller who drove a Tesla Model S P90D from start to finish in 11 minutes, 48.264 seconds. And, as Faraday Future is planning to take on the challenge in a car that will be using what it describes as production hardware and software, albeit with tweaks needed to cope with the singular conditions of Pikes Peak, the Tesla will be the car to beat.
"Testing the performance of FF 91 in real-world conditions sets the bar even higher as we bring the vehicle to market in 2018," said Sampson.
The event, now in its 95th year, takes place June 25 and is open to any vehicle with driven wheels from electric motorcycles to big rig trucks as well as vintage muscle cars. However, Faraday Future, and anyone else, for that matter has a long way to go if they want to get close to the current absolute course record. Nine-time World Rally champion recorded the remarkable time of eight minutes, 13.878 seconds when he drove a special Peugeot 208 T16 Pikes Peak model around the course in 2013.
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