Huawei's competitor to Tesla electric cars hits China's streets on Saturday

March 7, 2022: According to an announcement on social media, the first electric car with Huawei’s HarmonyOS operating system is set to start deliveries at a ceremony on Saturday in Shanghai.

In December, Huawei’s consumer business group CEO Richard Yu spent an hour at a winter product launch event promoting the Aito M5. But the Chinese telecommunications company is emphasizing it will not make cars on its own, instead of working with auto manufacturers on autonomous driving and different technology.

Seres is the automaker behind the Aito M5. According to the parent company’s website, the company is also known as SF Motors and is a Silicon Valley-based subsidiary of automaker Sokon, which is based in Chongqing, China.

The mid-sized SUV costs 249,800 yuan, after subsidies, according to the Aito website. In December, Tesla is raising the post-subsidy price for its Model Y in China by 21,088 yuan to 301,840 yuan.

The Aito M5 is kind of to Chinese start-up Li Auto’s Li-One in that the vehicle comes with a fuel tank for extending the driving range when the battery has run out of power.

High-profile hedge funds jump on the EV bandwagon, loading Rivian shares.

Li Auto said it delivered 8,414 cars in February. That’s more than Xpeng’s 6,225 deliveries for the month and Nio’s 6,131.

All the companies are listed in the U.S. and have started to offer shares in Hong Kong. Nio is set to join its two peers in Hong Kong with a listing on Thursday.

Start-ups and tech companies have rushed into China’s fast-growing electric vehicle market. But Tesla and Chinese automaker BYD dominate sales by far.

In 2021, China’s share of Tesla’s total revenue will increase to 26% from just 12% in 2019.