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China’s Future Mobility Aims for Luxury EV Launch in 2020
Future Mobility Corp., the four-month-old Chinese startup backed by social network giant Tencent Holdings Ltd., hopes to begin selling highly automated luxury electric cars by 2020.
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Future Mobility Corp., the four-month-old Chinese startup backed by social network giant Tencent Holdings Ltd., hopes to begin selling highly automated luxury electric cars by 2020.
CEO Cartsen Breitfeld tells The Wall Street Journal the company intends to establish itself in China, Europe and the U.S. Breitfeld joined the company in March from BMW AG, where he headed the company's i8 plug-in hybrid supercar program. He says Future Mobility targets eventual annual sales of several hundred thousand units.
Future Mobility is completing its first round of fundraising now and is building a headquarters in Shenzhen. The company’s other initial backers include Foxconn Technology Group, which assembles Apple iPhones, and Chinese luxury car dealer Harmony New Energy Auto.
The would-be carmaker, which patterns its plans after those of Tesla Motors Inc., has attracted dozens of engineers from BMW, Google, Mercedes-Benz and Tesla. But analysts say Future Mobility, like several other similar startups, faces formidable challenges achieving what many analysts consider wildly optimistic sales goals.
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