China continues to push forward in the field of e-mobility and strives for world leadership in this sector. To realize this goal, they even recruit top specialists from Apple or other tech-companies or leading car manufacturers.
The Chinese company LeEco (Leshi Internet Information and Technology) has already entered the American market and established a company in the USA in 2014. Faraday Future is focused on the development of intelligent electric vehicles. LeEco has planned to increase its staff count in Silicon Valley to 800 people; about 100 of them are engaged in the development of vehicle information systems.
Just in September, Bart Nabbe, specialist for car navigation systems and self-driving cars, has left his former employer Apple and joined Faraday Future. Between September 2014 and July 2016, he mainly worked in a “special program”, which is alleged to be “Project Titan”, Apple’s self-driving electric car. Apart from Nabbe, also specialists from other companies such as Tesla, GM, Ferrari, Lamborghini, BMW, Audi, Apple, SpaceX and Hulu have hired at the Chinese-American start-up.
Since the introduction of its first spectacular concept car “FFZERO1” at CES in January 2016, Faraday Future took a very fast development. It is now building its first automobile factory in Nevada; the second automobile factory in San Francisco is already under development. In March, Faraday announced the development of an electric vehicle, but so far refused to disclose more information on the project. It remains unclear when Faraday Future will start the mass production of electric vehicles.
Nevertheless it can be observed how important the field of e-mobility is for China, and what measures the government and companies take to grasp global leadership in this sector. Only some days ago, the Chinese government produced headlines with its plans for setting a mandatory number of electric vehicles within Western car manufacturers’ portfolios in China.
China Intellectual Property Blog 