Li Bin said that Wei Lai has learned from the experience of Chinese competitors entering the US market.
- Wei Li's founder, William Li, is often compared to Tesla's founder Elon Musk because he promoted the development of autonomous electric vehicles.
- Li Bin said that the investors of Weilai Auto are financially strong, so the company's situation is better than that of Chinese competitors such as Ferrari Future, Bayern and Weimar.
- Weilai Auto has raised more than $1 billion in investments from some of the largest companies in the Chinese banking and technology industries.
Li Bin, founder of Wei Lai Automobile, said in an interview with BusinessInsider during the Beijing Auto Show that the company has learned from the failures of other startups in the field. Weilai Automobile is regarded as Tesla's main competitor in China.
Wei Lai launched its first production car ES8 in December last year. It is a 7-seat electric SUV with a range of 220 miles (about 354 kilometers). The company plans to introduce an autopilot electric car to the US market by 2020.
But China's electric car startups have made major commitments before, and the results are mixed. The electric car startup Faraday Future, backed by billionaire Jia Yueting, exhibited its self-developed FF91 prototype at the 2016 CES show. But two years later, the company went bankrupt.
Li Bin said that Wei Lai has learned from the experience of Chinese competitors entering the US market.
Li Bin said: "From the first day, I knew that this is a capital-intensive market, so we have to make sure that we can expand the circle of friends of Weilai Automobile and let many investors invest in us. The investors of Weilai Automobile are Qualified long-term investors, so we believe that from a capital perspective, raising funds is not difficult."
According to Li Bin, there are about 56 investors in Weilai Auto, including Chinese technology giants Tencent, Baidu, Xiaomi, and US hedge funds Lone Pine Capital, CITIC Capital, Hillhouse Capital Group and Sequoia Capital.
The company plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange later this year with the goal of raising $2 billion in funding and is expected to be valued at $15 billion.
Li Bin said that Faraday's future failed because it deviated from the main goal of automakers. He said: "This company has entered multiple industries, and the competition in these industries is extremely fierce. This distracts them."
He said: "For us, this is different because we only care about the automotive industry."
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