Head of state economic office says Faraday deal still in talks

By Megan Messerly

Thursday, Nov. 19, 2015 | 6:45 p.m.

State director of economic development Steve Hill confirmed today that talks about bringing electric car maker Faraday Future to Nevada are ongoing, saying that there were a number of infrastructure and workforce issues that still need to be addressed.

Speaking at the Governor’s Office of Economic Development board meeting, Hill said that bringing Faraday to Nevada would be a “pretty exceptional deal” for the state. He said that Nevada has the potential to become the Detroit of the electric car industry, an industry he said would be “relevant for decades to come.”

The electric car manufacturer is considering building a factory site out on the 18,000 acres of developable land at Apex Industrial Park in North Las Vegas, one of four sites under consideration around the country.

Hill acknowledged that the state has been relatively silent about the deal for the past three months, but denied that it indicated a lack of activity.

“This is a significant opportunity for Southern Nevada and the state,” Hill said. “We need to be able to perform for them. They need to be able to execute what they say that they will do.”

Hill also named a number of officials and organizations — Commissioners Steve Sisolak and Marilyn Kirkpatrick, the city of North Las Vegas, the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance and members of his office — that have all been working hard to bring the deal to fruition.

“But we also need to make a deal happen that works for the state of Nevada, the citizens of Nevada and everyone involved,” Hill said.

Hill’s remarks follow another breaking of the silence by the relatively stealthy car company. Earlier today, Faraday’s head of design, Richard Kim, spoke at the LA Auto Show about the company’s vision for their vehicle, which he called a “multi-modal approach.”

The company has so far spoken only in general terms about their car, which they hope to be more connected than current cars with smartphone-like technology. One day, the company hopes the vehicle will be fully autonomous with an Uber-like model, where a customer could order a Faraday car to use for a limited amount of time.

“Since we’re starting from scratch, if we were just doing the car, that wouldn’t be the point,” Kim said on Twitter. “We have to look at this holistically."