EV Industry

Chinese electric vehicle startup WM Motor announced today that it has launched the mass production of its driverless-capable W6 model, jointly developed with Baidu. Deliveries of the vehicle will begin in the first half of 2021.

Various cities in China are taking steps to encourage the use of new energy vehicles, with the northwestern city of Xi'an being the latest.

Among them, ternary battery production was 48.5GWh, down 12.0% year-on-year; lithium iron phosphate battery production accumulated 34.6GWh, up 24.7% year-on-year.

China's full-year 2020 new energy passenger vehicle sales reached 1.246 million units, up 14.6 percent year-on-year.

Foxconn and Geely each hold 50 percent of the shares, and the chairman will be appointed by Foxconn.

Recent tight chip supply problems have affected global auto production for some time, which in turn will affect the stability of China's auto industry operations, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said.

Geely will support Baidu with technology, production capacity, engineering, manufacturing, and quality control, and the new company will also use Geely's supply chain procurement system.

The newly formed automaker, with its name still unknown, will target the passenger car market and will focus on the entire industry chain of smart car design and development, manufacturing, and sales and service.

Some of Geely's existing car manufacturing facilities will be modified to build smart electric cars, and the vehicles will use the software provided by Baidu and Geely's engineering know-how, the report said.

Shenzhen recently announced that a policy introduced last June to promote new energy vehicle consumption that expired on December 31 will be extended until June 30, 2021.