Chinese electric vehicle startups will battle for survival

25 April 2019

According to experts of the many current Chinese start-UPS for electric cars will survive a few

Alexander Klimov, photos autohome.com.cn and Volkswagen Newsroom

Chinese analyst Yang Jian shared in the journal Automotive News China his thoughts on the results of the Shanghai auto show 2019.

Across China there are hundreds of new startups in the development of electric vehicles (EV) with the dream of being the next Tesla.

However, at an auto show in Shanghai was an obvious indication that most EV startups will disappear in the near future. the

So, although about two dozen of the beginning producers of electric cars and demonstrated their products at the motor show, but only a small number of them have begun actual production, and only three – Nio, WM Motor and Xpeng Motors (electrogressive Xpeng G3 on the splash screen), have begun to supply the market...

Nio ES8

...and only Nio and WM has made significant sales.

Bar Nio ES8

The first product of Nio – electric crossover ES8, debuted in showrooms in June last year. Aggregate supply ES8 exceeded 15 000 units by the end of this March, according to the report of the company on the Nasdaq.

WM EX5

The company WM from Dubai began shipping to customers its first product – electrocreaser EX5 in September 2018. The company said it has set in the first quarter 4083 units EX5.

Panel Xpeng G3

However, some of the EV startups such as based in Nanjing company Byton and Hong Kong's Hybrid Kinetic, display their products at various motor shows (e.g., Las Vegas) and were not represented in Shanghai.

Byton Concept

In particular, Byton face an uncertain future: its co-founder Carsten breitfeld the left and for the first time acted as CEO of another Chinese startup – Iconiq Motors, whose 7-seater electromenager Seven was presented in Shanghai.

Iconic Seven

Care of Breitfeld fact, tantamount to vote of no confidence to the company that he founded. But Iconiq Motors agreed with earlier Swedish-Chinese startup NEVS (bought the remnants of the Swedish manufacturer Saab) on the joint development of EV and parallel production at its new plant in Tianjin.

Newborn company Nio, WM and Xpeng have demonstrated that to start the production startup is necessary to collect more than ¥15 billion ($2.2 billion). But the majority of their domestic counterparts did not raise even a third of that amount, according to data disclosed by the companies.

While this year will probably be running even more Chinese startups, global automakers are also planning to increase the production of electric vehicles.

So, the Volkswagen Group is the largest manufacturer of passenger cars in China, plans to produce about 12 million electric vehicles by 2028, announced at the Shanghai motor show, Volkswagen Group President Herbert Diss.

VW ID.ROOMZZ

To achieve this goal, the German auto giant intends next year to start production of EV on a specialized their factories in Shanghai and Foshan. Both companies can produce up to 600,000 machines per year elektropriveda on the basis of the global platform MEB developed by VW specifically for electric vehicles of the next generation.

If they do start mass production of electric cars and has successfully overcome the stage of "childhood diseases", local startups will have to compete face to face with global giants in its domestic market of electric vehicles.

Founder WM Freeman Shen said that the turmoil among Chinese automakers for the last decade give an idea of how you will develop the latest EV startups: "Ten years ago, China has over 100 automakers, but now survived only Geely, BYD and Great Wall, and the rest were either closed or half-dead."

Shen predicts that among start-up EV a similar pattern will emerge in five years: "Two or three are to lead, four to five will be half-dead, and the rest will simply be closed"..