California-based mobility company Faraday Future has unveiled at CES 2016 the FFZERO1, a high performance electric vehicle built upon FF’s Variable Platform Architecture, a modular engineering system optimized for electric vehicles, on which all future FF production vehicles will be based.
User-centric design is core to FF’s product development approach. Like future FF production models, the FFZERO1 Concept has a sixth sense for its drivers’ needs: featuring adaptive personalization, seamless transfer of custom vehicle configurations, access to live images and real time data visualization.
Faraday Future has directly integrated the smartphone into the steering column, representing the intersection of technology and automotive engineering. Conceptually, this setup could enable the smartphone to serve as the interface between the vehicle and the driver in – and outside – of the car.
The FFZERO1 Concept could be fully autonomous, meeting its driver at the track and perhaps taking a few perfect laps on its own to compare with, and improve upon, its driver’s performance.
Another of FF’s core philosophies is to design from the inside out. The FFZERO1 Concept’s interior is primarily white with a carbon fiber finish – a pure and extremely clean aesthetic atypical for combustion engine race cars, but reflective of a clean, quiet electric vehicle.
Inspired by NASA research, the single-seat configuration offers a comfortable, weightless body position, holding the driver at a perfect 45-degree angle, thereby helping to promote circulation.
The propeller-shaped, asymmetric instrument panel is a theme that will be incorporated into the future FF design DNA. The panel runs seamlessly into a unique Halo Safety System with integrated head and neck support, oxygen, and water supply fed to the driver through a prototype helmet. The system could also gather biometric data about its driver.
Utilizing lightweight materials and composites on the VPA platform, the FF design team experimented with new driver-focused proportions, pushing the canopy forward for a perfectly aerodynamic teardrop profile. FF’s soon-to-be signature “UFO line” runs around the center of the vehicle and is intended to give the sense that this vehicle is not completely of this world.
Aero tunnels run through the interior length of the vehicle, allowing air to flow through the car rather than around it, dramatically reducing drag and improving battery cooling.
Featuring four motors, one at each wheel, FFZERO1 is built for its use case: the track. If developed for limited production, it will have more than 1000 horsepower and will accelerate from zero to 60 in under three seconds, with a top speed in excess of 200 miles per hour.
all images and video courtesy of Faraday Future