Tesla Motors Inc To Face Another Mysterious Rival Apart From Faraday

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Tesla has made the electric car business so lucrative that now several companies are planning to compete with it. After the mysterious Faraday Future, it is Atieva that plans to make it big in electric cars.

Tesla inspiring others

Tesla is now well-established in the electric car field, but the same can’t be said of its rivals. Tesla’s southern California counterpart Fisker Automotive declared bankruptcy and is hoping for resurrection under a new owner. Another Tesla rival, Faraday Future, plans to host a major press event at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January in Las Vegas to unveil its electric car plans. This company reportedly received lavish funding from Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting.

Now there is the possibility of another mysterious company called Atieva entering the scene. The company has its headquarters in Menlo Park just a couple of miles away from Stanford University. Atieva will be owned by Chinese automaker BAIC (Beijing Automotive Industry Corp.), which will control it through its Beijing Electric Vehicle Company subsidiary, says a report from Green Car Reports.

Together, the two companies will unveil their first electric car design at the 2016 Beijing Auto Show in April. Earlier this fall, BAIC opened a technical center of its own in Silicon Valley. BAIC aims to produce a range of electric cars capable of competing with new entrants such as Tesla and with established automakers like BMW, General Motors and Nissan.

What makes Atieva mysterious?

In 2007, a former Tesla vice president and the founder of a networking company founded Atieva. The original mission of the company was to provide monitoring and software services for battery packs in a variety of electrified vehicles. But now the company has moved into full-scale cars from software and battery consulting, according to an article last week in British Autocar.

On its website, Atieva states its mission as “redefining what a car can be by building an iconic new vehicle from the ground up. We’re a car company, not a design house. And we’re definitely not a traditional automaker.” A sketch of a car shape is included on it as well.

Autocar claims several companies will be involved in the Atieva electric car, including Korean battery cell manufacturer SK Group, Germany-based industrial giant Siemens, and Italian vehicle design and production specialist Cecomp.

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