Aiways isn’t exactly like the other disruptive Chinese EV startups: it’s run by industry insiders. Credit: Aiways
There’s a sleek, new sports utility vehicle cruising the streets of Frankfurt and Munich. It’s all electric, and it has backing from Siemens and Bosch. But there’s one thing that makes the car -- the Aiways U5 -- different from the Audis, BMWs and Mercedes-Benzs that rule the Autobahn: this vehicle was designed and built by a Chinese company.
While much of the world is just beginning to embrace electric vehicles (EVs), China has raced ahead, doling out government subsidies, setting up special charging stations and rolling out scores of EV startups with names like NIO, XPeng and Aiways -- the first Chinese-made electric vehicle to be marketed in Europe.
The three-year-old startup was co-founded by a pair of Chinese entrepreneurs, and named Aiways (it stands for "AI," or artificial intelligence, is on the way). It didn’t take long to gain traction. The Shanghai-based company raised more than $1 billion from a consortium of investors, including Chinese venture capital firms,
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