Original Tesla Founder creates new Startup with Chinese Company

SF5

In the beginning you had Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, both had founded and sold an eBook reader company. Their passion was in auto's and they started Tesla. Both left the company in 2008 but they kept their hands in the EV auto business by starting up new company's. Eberhard went to focus on density of batteries with his new company.

Chinese auto company Sokon Motors bought InEVit, Eberhard's battery company and with it also bought up the old Hummer Factory in South Bend, Indiana with SF Motors headquarters in Silicon Valley. Based on a Skateboard chassis platform, you have what was introduced in March as the SF5 and SF7.

SF7

SF Motors has two plants, one here in the US and one in Chongqing China. Pre-Production will begin in the start of calendar Q3 2018 with Sales across the US and China in Spring of 2019 and deliveries to begin immediately then in Q2 2019.

SF Motors CEO John Zang has stated even in a growing crowded field of auto companies, his will stand out as they are almost complete bringing their two auto assembly plants online and will go through a proper pre-production run of SF5 and SF7 auto's before full production for 2019 which is based at only 200,000 cars for the first full calendar year. That is 150,000 for the China Market and 50,000 for the US market.

Zhang has stated that unlike so many other EV companies that do not have productions sites ready yet, his will do what even Tesla has struggled at which is to have a fully functional assembly system in place to build their two EV auto's before selling to the public.

SF Motors Web Site

SF Motors Video

According to their latest press announcement held at their headquarters, they confirmed that they would have 2wd and 2wd versions of both the SF5 and SF7 and that the top of the line model would be a 4 motor version producing 1,000 HP with a 0 to 60 time of less than 3 seconds and a minimum driving range of 300 US miles as based on the InEVit powertrain & Battery pack from that Acquisition. No further information was provided nor was any internal views of the auto's shown. Assumptions made by the press is that the SF5 which is smaller than the SF7 also denotes the number of people in the auto, 5 passenger SF5 and 7 passenger SF7 CUVs.

Green Car Report story

Auto News Story

Wow, that's impressive that they plan to have vehicles on the road here in a year from now. 

I wonder if it's as much smoke and mirrors as Faraday Future was. 

33 minutes ago, Cubical-aka-Moltar said:

I wonder if it's as much smoke and mirrors as Faraday Future was. 

Faraday Future has actually not take possession of the building they are supposed to build auto's in. SF Motors has had since last fall the Indiana Hummer assembly plant and already have it pretty much changed over to allow them to build their auto in. Installation is going on with the new updated robots. 

My gut based on going through their web site is this is better bank rolled and clearly ahead for the China and US market.

2 hours ago, ccap41 said:

Wow, that's impressive that they plan to have vehicles on the road here in a year from now. 

I am excited to see the Hummer assembly plant get put to good use building new auto's here in the US.

I wonder what they will do for a sales channel or dealership.

I have to think this will do everything they say as it is backed by a real auto company already building and selling auto's in China.

@balthazar What do you think of this auto style design?

Doesn't do anything for me. Generic, with a bit dated body & a 'zippy' light up front.

Auto design has gotten depressing overall. But it's been backed into a corner.

Side profile of the SF7 reminds me of a toned down Civic.  The styling is pretty anonymous, the branding non-existent.  Seems like they would need a better name than 'SF Motors' if they want to stand out in the market...

I just saw they chose to go with "5" and "7".

Is there any vision left in the auto industry?

1 hour ago, balthazar said:

I just saw they chose to go with "5" and "7".

Is there any vision left in the auto industry?

We'll it is a Tesla Founder startup, Guess since they went with S, X and 3, we are pushing it to expect anything more from him than 5 & 7.