Alibaba-backed electric vehicle cruises into a booming market crowded by Tesla, Xpeng and NIO cars

The IM L7, a luxury electric sedan from joint venture IM Motors, marks Alibaba’s first foray into the world’s largest electric vehicle market
Tech rivals including Huawei, Xiaomi and Baidu have also bet on EVs to fuel future growth

Electric & new energy vehicles

Ann Caoin Shanghai

Published: 9:30pm, 4 Mar 2022

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A new electric vehicle (EV) from the Alibaba Group Holding-backed IM Motors will launch this month, joining a crowded but rapidly growing market dominated by Tesla and Chinese firms Xpeng and Nio.

The first smart electric car from IM Motors will go on sale on March 29, with the first deliveries slated for April, according to an article published on Thursday on Alizila, the official news hub of Alibaba, owner of the South China Morning Post.

IM Motors is an EV joint venture controlled by China’s largest state-owned carmaker SAIC Motor, and also owned by e-commerce giant Alibaba and the state-backed property operator Shanghai Zhangjiang Hi-tech Park Development. It was started in 2020 with a 7.2 billion yuan (US$1.14 billion) private equity fund. SAIC holds 54 per cent of the venture, while Alibaba and Zhangjiang Hi-tech each hold 18 per cent, according to Chinese media reports. The other 10 per cent is reserved for employees and customers who provide user data for future research and development.

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The IM L7, a luxury electric sedan, was first unveiled at the Auto Shanghai car show last April. By December, it had passed test runs in nine Chinese cities. It will go on sale for 408,800 yuan.

The vehicle is being produced at SAIC’s factory in Shanghai’s Lingang Special Area. It is located in the Shanghai Pilot Free-Trade Zone, which is expected to become the country’s leading area for the EV industry, as specified in China’s 14th five-year plan. Tesla’s only Gigafactory in China is also in Lingang.

The SAIC factory is the company’s biggest research and export centre for intelligent car cockpit products, interior decorations and seat components, according to a government statement from last August.

The new electric car marks Alibaba’s debut in an industry becoming increasingly crowded by Chinese tech firms. Rivalling tech giants have rushed to tap the world’s largest EV market to fuel new growth.

Sales of new energy passenger vehicles in China could grow 84 per cent year on year to 5.5 million units in 2022, according to a projection from the China Passenger Car Association.

In December, Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei Technologies Co entered the EV market with a jointly developed electric SUV equipped with the tech giant’s HarmonyOS Smart Cockpit operating system. The vehicle was released under the AITO brand and produced by Chinese carmaker Seres. EVs are one of multiple business segments in which Huawei has invested heavily since its smartphone sales were battered by US sanctions.

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Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi also announced its entry into the electric car business last year. Its first EV factory is being built on the outskirts of Beijing, according to a government announcement in November.

In January, Jidu Automotive, the smart EV joint venture backed by search engine and artificial intelligence giant Baidu and carmaker Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, received nearly US$400 million in its latest fundraising round to support the development of vehicles with level 4 (L4) autonomous driving technology, a classification for cars that do not require human intervention in most circumstances.

Alibaba has been working with SAIC to develop internet-connected cars since 2016. Some of SAIC’s Roewe SUVs already run on Alibaba’s YunOS, which features intelligent digital maps, voice controls, action cameras and an internet ID.

Qian Gang, a digital innovation director at IM Motors, said in a seminar in Shanghai last September that Alibaba and SAIC mostly provide capital support for the joint venture. IM Motors’ core technology belongs to the company itself, according to Qian.

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