Faraday Future Intelligent Electric Inc, a California-based global shared intelligent electric mobility ecosystem company, announced its new Vice President of Manufacturing, Rich Schmidt. Rich will be responsible for leading all facets of FF’s production and manufacturing, focusing on the Hanford, CA manufacturing plant, FF ieFactory California. He will oversee the continued development, component tooling, and hiring related to the production of the FF 91.
Rich succeeds Mathias Hofmann, FF’s Senior Vice President of Global Supply Chain, who has been in the interim role for the past 8 months. FF would like to thank and recognize Mathias for his hard work and many contributions during his interim role as head of manufacturing during this time. Mathias continues in his role as SVP of Global Supply Chain at FF.
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FF announced on April 14th the completion of the first production build FF 91 vehicle, coming off the production line at the FF ieFactory California, located in Hanford, California. This closely followed the recently announced official start of production of the FF 91 vehicle.
“I am thrilled to join the FF team and contribute my expertise of automotive manufacturing organizations to this distinctive and growing brand,” said Rich Schmidt, Vice President of Manufacturing. “I’m looking forward to getting to know the team and helping to lead them through our future growth opportunities and the production of this great new product, the FF 91.”
Rich started his career with Toyota in Georgetown Kentucky, where he spent 16 years working in Manufacturing and engineering. After Toyota, Rich led several major OEM plant startups and stabilization functions in North America including Nissan, Hyundai, Volkswagen and Tesla, working within both manufacturing and engineering divisions within these organizations. After Tesla, Rich started his own consulting company where he consulted for many years for JD Powers, Kia Motors, Honda, Plastic Omnium, Gibson Guitar and many other valued partners. Rich also spent time at both Lordstown Motors and Canoo in various manufacturing and leadership roles.
“We are very excited to welcome Rich to our growing team as we continue our ramp up of production vehicles at our Hanford manufacturing facility,” said Xuefeng Chen, Global CEO of Faraday Future. “Rich brings a wealth of experience to help oversee the manufacturing and launch of our flagship FF 91 and will help ensure we deliver the best product to our valued customers.”
SOURCE: Businesswire