Faraday Future's production car appeared to malfunction during its big debut

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January 4, 2017 10:12 AM

Faraday Future's newly unveiled production car appeared to malfunction after it was unveiled at an event in Las Vegas on Tuesday night.

LeEco founder and CEO Jia Yueting, left, with Nick Sampson, Faraday Future's senior vice president of research and development and engineering.

The electric-car startup hosted an event to show off the car — called the FF91 — and some of its features, which include the ability to park itself.

At one point, Nick Sampson, the company's senior vice president of research and development and engineering, was onstage with Faraday Future's main investor, LeEco chairman Jia Yueting. Sampson asked Jia to press a button on the car to prompt the "auto valet park" feature.

Nothing happened.

"OK, it seems like it's a little bit lazy tonight," Sampson said of the car before inviting Jia to give some remarks about the company.

After Jia's remarks, the stage lights were dimmed and Sampson had another go at getting the car to move. Another long pause followed.

"As a new baby, she's often very, very timid," Sampson quipped.

Moments later, the vehicle inched slowly across the stage.

According to The Verge, Sampson commented on the apparent glitch after the event: "It's a complex situation ... We knew there were technical challenges. If you look up at the roof of this building, there's a lot of structure up there that inhibits some of the signals the car needs to be able to self-drive."

Earlier in the presentation, a video of the car apparently navigating a parking lot was shown. In the video, the car eventually finds a spot and backs itself in, ostensibly without any driver input.