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China’s Take On Tesla Motors ... About the LeEco

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

China’s Take On Tesla Motors

Jean-Marc Côté and other French artists issued a series of futuristic pictures in 1899, 1900, 1901 and 1910 and just like people today, these artists also tried to imagine what the future will be like. In this case, they imagined the world in then distant year of 2000.

Even though we still don’t have flying cars (or flying police for that matter), technology has improved so much in the last couple of decades, it is almost impossible not to wonder what is next.

One thing is for sure, though: Electric cars are the future.

Tomorrow’s vehicles will be self-driving, electric and very likely Chinese. At least that is vision of JiaYueting, a billionaire entrepreneur who believes that Chinese technology will re-engineer the automobile industry and most likely take on Tesla Motors, the US pioneer in premium electric vehicle (EV) production.

“Tesla’s a great company and has taken the global car industry to the EV era. But we’re not just building a car. We consider the car a smart mobile device on four wheels, essentially no different to a cellphone or tablet,” Jia said in an interview at the Beijing headquarters of his Le Holdings Co, or LeEco.

“We hope to surpass Tesla and lead the industry leapfrogging to a new age,” Jia added.

Naturally, people are sceptic about whether a startup like LeEco will succeed in its very ambitious vision. However, LeEco is not the only EV startup in China. After the government opened up the auto industry to powerful technology companies to switch to cleaner electric cars, the market has been officially open.

“People questioned our idea, a small IT company building a car to compete with the BMWs and Teslas of the world, and laughed at us. It wasn’t easy, but here we are,” Jia told Reuters.

Recently, Jia unveiled the LeSEE electric concept supercar, an ultimate rival to Tesla’s Model S.

You can watch the “smart, connected and self-driving” LeSEE drive onstage in Beijing here:

Made in USA

LeEco plans to start making a version of the LeSEE in a few years at a plant being built near Las Vegas. The cars produced in Nevada would be sold in the USA and China. These smart cars will also have a “disruptive” pricing model, similar to phones and TV sets LeEco markets in China. Jia’s company, often called China’s Netflix, will sell movies, TV shows, music and other services to drivers of its cars. According to Jia, when this happens, “our cars will be free.” After Chinese tech moguls like Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent funded more than half a dozen EV startups, it is widely expected that China’s bus, taxi and courier firms will be encouraged to go electric. “We define our car in a whole new way … instead of copying Apple and Tesla. Our products are not upgraded from those that already exist. They are revolutionary … products that never existed before,” LeEco co-founder and vice chairman Hank Liu told Reuters. Who is JiaYueting? Chinese Smart Cars JiaYueting grew up in a rural Shanxi town in northern China. He briefly worked as a computer technician at a tax office before he set out on his own. He was also selling batteries to power cellphone tower antennas after a relative of his advised him to do it. In 2003, Jia drove his Toyota to Beijing with 200,000 yuan (around $31,000 at current rates) in cash, where he was seeking to grow his Sinotel Technologies business by adding simple mobile video streaming. In 2007, he took the company public. Jia registered a group, what is now LeEco, and today they are employing 11,00 people in China, India and United States. His colleagues and friends say that Jia is a clever businessman, “generous in picking up the tab for meals” and “never stops working.” Forbes values Jia at $4.8 billion. Is your business changing the world of customer experience? How would you like to hear the feedback and learn from the independent customer experience professionals at the Customer Experience Awards? ENTER NOW