Here’s what we know about that mysterious new Tesla competitor

A new electric-car company has come to life in the US, and it wants to build what it calls the “vehicle of the future.” It makes sense then, that the company’s name is Faraday Future. The automotive startup was founded nearly two years ago, and quietly emerged in the US over the summer, with promises of a new electric vehicle that would start rolling off its assembly line in 2017. Faraday Future is backed by Chinese billionaire, Jia Yueting, who is the CEO of the Beijing-based holding company, LeTV. The company is positioned to be a direct rival to Tesla Motors, arguably the only all-electric carmaker to have successfully designed, built and sold tens of thousands of its plug-ins — with a lengthy backlog of orders left to fill. Until recently, we knew very little about Faraday Future. Nevertheless, whispers about the secretive car company grew ever louder in the automotive world. Faraday Future is slowly coming out of its shell. It has set up shop in Gardena, California, at the site of Nissan’s former headquarters. The company says it has nearly 500 employees across 40 countries — some of whom are heavy-hitters poached from Tesla, BMW, Ford, GM and SpaceX. On Wednesday, Faraday Future execs shook hands with Nevada state officials on a plan to build a $1 billion, 3-million-square-foot production facility in Northern Las Vegas. The one big missing piece, of course, is the car. To date, we have only seen obscure renderings of what a Faraday Future vehicle would look like. We expect the startup to take the wraps off ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show next month.