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Aug. 30 (NBD) -- The first pre-production FF91 car has rolled off the line, Faraday Future (FF)'s founder and CEO Jia Yueting said Wednesday in a Weibo post. 

The new-energy car startup held a ceremony at its facility in Hanford, California to celebrate the significant achievement. Attended by around 200 people including senior executives and key engineers, the ceremony is also aimed at reassuring investors that the company is well-positioned to achieve mass production. 

Different companies have different definitions for pre-production, but basically it means the product has entered the final stretch for manufacturing, one industry insider pointed out. If everything goes well, FF will be able to mass-produce the FF91 in about half a year, the insider added. 

At the ceremony, Jia, on behalf of the company, offered prizes to the "hero teams" from manufacturing, product development, and VLE (Vehicle Line Executive) division in gratitude for their great contributions to the accomplishment of periodic strategic goals and, more importantly, in preparation for the next goal of volume production. 

To ensure the mass production of the FF91, FF is beefing up efforts to attract talents. Following Tesla's layoff of more than 4,000 people, the company set up a recruitment team specially targeting former Tesla employees. It has hired a number of key talents including a former senior executive, guaranteeing talent supply for the mass production of the FF91. 

Another effort to foster talents, FF will closely cooperate with Hanford-based College of the Sequoias to provide vocational training to get new employees up to speed. 

According to FF's development plan, the FF91 will be first produced in Hanford. Evergrande FF Intelligent Automotive (China) Group, located in Nansha District, Guangzhou, China, is designed to take charge of FF's localized production in China as well as the manufacturing of subsequent products. 

At present, FF is synchronously promoting two manufacturing projects in both Hanford and Guangzhou. 

Peng Jianjun, chairman of Evergrande FF Intelligent Automotive (China) Group, said the Guangzhou-based company will take full charge of FF's technical R&D as well as production operation and management in China. 

For the future, Peng said his company plans to build five R&D and production bases across China in the next decade, with an aim of reaching a planned annual production capacity of 5 million vehicles after 10 years as it will launch various multi-type vehicle series covering high- to low-end products in the global market to establish internet-based smart traveling.

Email: lansuying@nbd.com.cn