Carmaker Faraday Future announced Thursday plans to build a $1 billion factory in North Las Vegas, pending approval from the state legislature.
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The deal involves $120 million in public infrastructure improvements to upgrade the Apex Industrial Park in North Las Vegas, and an additional $70 million or so in investments from private landowners.
Faraday said in the letter that the 4,500 new jobs will be in positions that include a wide variety of professionals and manufacturing employment opportunities. The total economic impact is estimated at $85 billion over 20 years. Tesla Motors Inc.is building the world’s largest lithium-ion battery factory east of Reno and has said it expects to spend $10 billion over 10 years.
Faraday Future officials declined to say whether California offered such incentives, citing a nondisclosure agreement.
Jia Yueting, aged 42, is founder and CEO of Leshi Information & Technology Beijing, also known as LeshiTV, which is one of China’s most popular online video sites.
Not much is known about Faraday Future, other than its plans to unveil a prototype vehicle at the next Consumer Electronics Show, but it’s following the lead of Tesla by moving to the Nevada desert: Elon Musk recently announced that Tesla’s own sprawling production facility, the Gigafactory, was destined to open in Sparks, Nevada by 2020.
When and how the pipeline is built and paid for is likely to be “the subject of some intense discussions” in the future, said John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the wholesale water supplier for North Las Vegas and the rest of the Las Vegas Valley.
Faraday Future said in a statement: “After a great deal of research, travel, and careful consideration, we have decided that the best home for our first manufacturing facility would be within the stunning mountainscape of North Las Vegas”. It hopes to bring a vehicle to market as early as 2017.
A training program is planned to prepare up to 4,000 auto assembly workers for jobs at the plant.
Half of the plant’s workers must be Nevadans, according to the agreement.
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Rindels reported from Carson City, Nevada.
