Jia Yueting’s New Robots: Revolutionary Tech or Cloned

If you thought the saga of Jia Yueting (YT Jia) and Faraday Future (FF) couldn’t get more surreal, hold my soldering iron. The man who has spent nearly a decade promising to revolutionize the automotive industry, while delivering fewer cars than I have fingers, is back.

But this time, he isn’t just selling the “FF 91” dream. He has pivoted to the flavor of the month: Humanoid Robots. At the recent NADA Show in Las Vegas, an odd venue for a robotics launch, Jia unveiled three new “Embodied AI” products.

The Lineup: FF Master, Futurist, and Aegis

The new roster includes the FF Master, the FF Futurist, and a robotic dog called the FX Aegis. If you follow the Chinese robotics scene, you might get a sense of déjà vu: these machines don’t just look familiar, they look like carbon copies of existing hardware.

The “Master” of Copy-Paste?

The resemblance to the Agibot (Zhiyuan) Lingxi X2, created by ex-Huawei engineer “Zhihui Jun,” is uncanny. The height, weight, DoF, and even the specific Nvidia chip match exactly. From the skeletal structure of the legs to sensor placement, the specs are identical down to the centimeter.

In the tech world, parallel thinking happens. However, identical spec sheets usually signal a “white label” job rather than genuine innovation. It appears Jia may have shopped from the same supplier or simply rebranded an existing platform.

Under the Hood: Mid-Range Ambitions

The flagship model, the FF Futurist, stands taller at 169cm and weighs 69kg. It features a “face screen” for interaction, a gimmick previously seen on Xiaomi’s CyberOne. While the design is clean, the “brain” presents a bottleneck.

FF claims these robots are “AI-driven,” yet the Futurist runs on an Nvidia Jetson Orin platform with roughly 200 TOPS. For context, serious players like Unitree are eyeing Nvidia’s Thor chips (2000+ TOPS). 200 TOPS is the minimum entry fee for computer vision: it is not the engine for a “Super Concierge” or “Super Family Assistant.”

The Ecosystem Trap

This launch follows the classic Jia Yueting playbook: identify a hot trend, announce a disruptive product with high-concept renders, and open pre-orders ($100 deposit) while seeking new capital. Pricing is vague, ranging from $1,750 to $25,000.

This massive price spread suggests FF hasn’t finalized the Bill of Materials (BOM) or determined if these are high-end toys or industrial tools. It feels like a strategy to pump stock by latching onto the AI hype train.

Pros and Cons

• ✅ Pros: Demonstrates FF is still “alive”; Clean industrial design (even if borrowed).
• ❌ Cons: Suspiciously similar to Agibot X2; Underpowered compute (200 TOPS) for 2026; Heavy reliance on teleoperation; History of failing to ship products.

The Verdict: Vaporware Until Proven Otherwise

Faraday Future has struggled to mass-produce a single car model after billions in investment. The idea that they have secretly developed a cutting-edge robotics division to compete with Boston Dynamics or Tesla is hard to swallow.

If you are a robotics enthusiast, look at Unitree, Agibot, or Xiaomi. They have shipping hardware. With FF, you are pre-ordering a promise from a man who specializes in unfulfilled ones.