18 Feb Chinese start-ups set sights on car industry

The Financial Times, February 1, 2018

Fledgling homegrown producers of electric vehicles take on Tesla and foreign giants

A prototype electric car from Byton, one of the up and coming Chinese start-ups

From Alibaba in e-commerce to Didi Chuxing in ride-hailing, Chinese start-ups have changed the landscape of the global tech industry. And now they are coming for cars.  A handful of China-based fledgling companies have raised hundreds of millions of dollars in venture funding and launched electric vehicle prototypes in the past few months, all aiming to copy Tesla’s success in the US.

Click here to read the full article at FT.com

Bill Russo’s quote:

“Think about what happened when the first iPhone came along,” says Bill Russo, head of Automobility, a consultancy in Shanghai. “Nokia didn’t see it, Motorola didn’t see it. Within a couple of years, they were gone.”

He says the same could happen with cars. “This is happening way faster in China than it is anywhere else.”