Our Future Rides With Faraday

By: Charlotte Evans

FaradayIf you’re one of the thousands of lucky Southern Nevadans who will land a well-paying job at Faraday Future electric car company in the next few years, you can thank the Mayor of North Las Vegas, John Lee, and City Manager, Dr. Qiong Liu, for the opportunity. You can also send thank you cards to the Mayor’s staff, the Governor and members of the Nevada State Legislature who met in special session just one week before Christmas to iron out the deal approving incentives and logistics to give Faraday Future the green light to set up its global headquarters in North Las Vegas.

Behind The Scenes

The effort to bring Faraday Future to Nevada was the brainchild of North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee, who had earlier lauded the agreement bringing Tesla Motors to northern Nevada, saying it would be good for all Nevadans. He patterned the Faraday agreement after the Tesla plan, and along with City Manager Qiong Liu, engaged in months of maneuvering and cajoling behind the scenes to schedule a pivotal meeting with the board of directors at Faraday. The meeting came off like something from a Seinfeld episode, according to Mayor Lee: It was only supposed to last 15 minutes but Lee says he and the city manager were a bit over-eager and extended their visit.

“They opened the door [figuratively] and I pushed my head through the door…and she put her shoulder through the door…and I put my knee in…and she put her hand in…and so we ended up in that board of directors room for an hour and a half,” says Lee.

Following the breakthrough at the board meeting, Lee and Liu continued the relentless courtship of Faraday with emails, phone calls and tours of the Las Vegas valley. They enjoyed a meeting over tea with Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting and his staff. “We started drinking tea with these people and we became friends,” says Lee. “Pretty soon, because of [North Las Vegas’] proximity and everything that we had [to offer] here, it just came together.”

Forward Motion

Faraday’s arrival in North Las Vegas will transform the economy of Southern Nevada, which has always been driven by the hospitality and gaming industry. “North Las Vegas is going to be the bread basket [for the valley],” says Lee. “More money will be made and more opportunities will be had in the northern part of the city now than in any other place in the valley.”  Perceptions of Southern Nevada are also likely to change as the region is expected to become a global hub for technological and environmental innovation.

“[As kids] we watched The Jetsons and Star Trek, and those futuristic things are happening now,” says Lee. “The vehicle of the future will be a vehicle where you’ll sit in it [and] it will work like an iPad: You’ll tell the iPad (or the car) where you’re going and what you need to do along the way. Then you can sit back and do aromatherapy, you can take a nap, you can read; [meantime] the streetlights will talk to [your] car. You can be going 35 miles an hour toward an intersection—the light will be red [but] the street light will tell your car not to slow down [because] the light is going to turn green in 15 seconds.”

Faraday Impact At Home

Southern Nevadans should start seeing proof of the Faraday Future agreement soon, as construction begins on infrastructure needed to support the $1 billion car plant at Apex in North Las Vegas. “We hope to break ground in early 2016,” says Stacy Morris, director of public relations and communications at Faraday. “We’re moving fast. On the corporate side we’ve been hiring about 50 people per month, which is fun to watch.”

At its peak, Faraday Future plans to employ about 4,500 workers with at least half being Nevada residents. Eighty percent of the jobs are expected to be on the assembly line, paying about $22 an hour. A massive training program will get underway for those jobs when the plant is ready. “We haven’t started the recruiting process yet but our website, faradayfuture[dot]com has a link for submitting job applications,” says Morris.

The Faraday Future Legacy

The projected economic turnaround in North Las Vegas, which a few years ago was on the verge of bankruptcy, is significant. Over the next several years, hundreds of millions of dollars in local government revenue is forecast to come as a result of the Faraday operation. State government and schools are also expected to benefit receiving millions in new revenue. “The next mayor after me and the next mayor after him (or her) are going to see the great rewards from the efforts of this,” says Lee. “It’s just our time and our opportunity to make a huge difference in our lives here. We all came here for that reason. We didn’t come here to be famous. We came here to fix this [economic] problem.”

Charlotte Evans is an award-winning journalist who freelances as a media relations specialist and writer. She has lived in the Las Vegas Valley since 1992, and for more than 17 years anchored the news at KLAS-TV, the CBS affiliate in Las Vegas.

Our Future Rides With Faraday.