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Mar.25 (NBD) -- Troubled electric car startup Faraday Future（FF）has received a surprise lifeline in the form of a new 50/50 joint venture partnership with Chinese online video game company The9, NBD reported Monday.

The9 says it's willing to contribute up to 600 million U.S. dollars to the joint venture, and FF has promised to use that money to make a new car model in China called the V9 and other potential cars in the future.

FF promised to provide site for the joint venture in China and it might be its moganshan site in Zhejiang. The joint venture hopes to make 300,000 cars per year and is expected to roll off pre-productions and fulfil pre-orders in 2020.

It is noted that the partnership is made in less than 3 months since the end of last year, reported China Securities Journal citing an insider in FF, adding The9 is one of the first Nasdaq-listed Chinese Internet companies and FF values its international team and experience in the capital market.

"The9 and World of Warcraft, a game the company has acted, brought great joys to the post-1970 and the post-1980 generations. And those people have become backbone of the Chinese society, which are target consumers of FF," the persons stated.

A person familiar with the matter disclosed to news outlet Yicai that the partnership with The9 fundamentally differs from the deals with Sun Hongbin and Xu Jiayin. Previously, Xu Jiayin actually rebranded Evergrande Health with FF through investing in the latter. But the money The9 gave Jia is raised through its own listed company.

But currently, it remains unknown whether the company can raise that much money and it depends on American investors' attitude. "The priority is to start the project and try to build a car by the end of this year," the person disclosed.

In addition, a person-in-charge of FF said frankly to NBD that the tie-up with The9 will be good to its financing activities.

It is noticed FF91 is an ultra-luxury electric SUV that Faraday Future debuted at CES 2017 and priced at as high as 2 million yuan (29,8071.5 U.S. dollars). But it hasn't got into production as of today.

FF ran into cash flow difficulties since its breakup with Evergrande Health last October. To generate short-term cash, FF streamlined its employee structure, and sold its Nevada site and Los Angeles headquarters.

It is noted FF's financing activities are continuing. But given the global economic background, it might take a little while longer for FF to raise money.

The person familiar with the matter disclosed that FF is trying to raise money from three investment banks TD Ameritrade, Stifel and Maxim. In addition, TD Ameritrade and Maxim will also provide funds for the joint venture.

The partnership is good for the on-time production of FF91 and will accelerate the research and development of the next luxury model FF81. If the foreign financing activities go well, FF 91 will get into production within the year and FF will go public in America in 2020, the person added.

As of press time, shares of The9 increased 62.7 percent in pre-market trading.

Email: tanyuhan@nbd.com.cn