Meet Tesla's New Chinese Competitor
Qiantu Motor is a name most North American car enthusiasts have never heard of. It's also a name that Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) investors should pay a lot closer attention to.
Qiuntu Motor is China's largest domestic automotive design firms and is best known for its cars that boast materials that are found in business jets and mega-yachts. The company is also working on a new sports car next year, which boasts an electric engine with a carbon-fiber body and aluminum frame.
The car will sell for 700,000 yuan ($106,000), which comparable to Tesla's Model S.
"We are learning from Tesla as well as all the other electric carmakers," the company's Chairman Lu Qun told Bloomberg in an interview. "We are aiming at building high-performance cars, and there's no other option but to build our own factory, because there isn't a plant in China that has a carbon-fiber molding workshop."
Qiuntu Motor is hoping to gain a large slice of the electric auto market in China, which is expected to grow 10-fold to 3 million units sold by 2025.
Meanwhile, Tesla will also see competitive pressure from Chehejia, another China-based auto firm that will introduce electric vehicles by the en of 2017, including an SUV that could compete against Tesla's Model X.
However, Tesla CEO Elon Musk doesn't seem overly concerned and joked during Recode's Code conference last week that there have been "so many announcements of autonomous EV startups" that he's "waiting for my mom to announce one."
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