EV Industry

Following rumors earlier this month, Chinese appliance giant Skyworth officially announced Tuesday that it is entering the car-making world.

In the January-March period, the operating revenue of China's auto manufacturing industry rose 71.5 percent year-on-year to RMB 2.12 trillion.

BAT is the acronym for the most familiar combination of technology giants in China, where B is Baidu, A is Alibaba and T is Tencent. Baidu has already entered the car industry, while Alibaba is working with SAIC to build IM Motors, and people wonder, what about Tencent?

Jidu Auto, the car-making unit of Chinese search engine and AI giant Baidu, plans to expand its team size to 2,500-3,000 people by the end of next year, including 400-500 software engineers.

Arcfox, the BAIC-owned EV brand that recently showcased Huawei's amazing autonomous driving capabilities, saw its first exclusive Supercharger station go into operation in Beijing.

Jidu Auto CEO Xia Yiping said the company's products are planned in "series" with a new car launched every 1-1.5 years. "Based on such a speed and investment, it is expected to invest 50 billion yuan in the next five years."

The cumulative number of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in China has exceeded 7,000, Chinese official media the People's Daily said on April 21.

Li Yinan is building a car, but just hasn't declared it because he's keeping a low profile, the report said.

In today's China, whether to jump on the car-making bandwagon seems to be a choice every powerful tech company has to make.

Its pre-sale price starts at RMB 29,800 ($4,588), not far off the Wuling Hongguang Mini EV's starting price of RMB 28,800.