Dai Lei, former CEO and co-founder of Chinese EV startup Byton, will take a position at Evergrande Auto, according to a report by Sina Tech on March 25.

Dai appeared at Evergrande Group headquarters on Monday and was greeted by Evergrande Auto executives, the report said, adding that a Byton executive acquiesced to the rumors.

Dai gave up his executive position at a traditional car company in 2016 to found Byton, a luxury electric car brand, with Bi Fukang, a former vice president of BMW and the "father of BMW i8".

The company was then seen as one of the most promising electric car startups in China, along with , Motors, and .

However, at the end of June last year, Dai, then CEO, announced that the company would suspend business operations in China. The company's M-Byte model hasn't made it to mass production.

Earlier this year, Byton, Foxconn, and Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement, announcing the goal of mass production of the M-Byte by the first quarter of 2022.

Despite not having delivered a single vehicle, Evergrande Auto has become China's third largest publicly traded car firm behind BYD and NIO

(Hengchi 9 of Evergrande Auto)