Elon Musk, Tesla CEO. (Photo provided to China Daily)
DeLorean Doors
Park Piao left Changan Automobile to run the R&D department for startup Zhiche Auto in Shanghai. Zhiche's CEO is Shen Haiyin, who formerly worked for Chinese internet security company Qihoo 360.
"I received quite a lot of offers from all kinds of companies before I decided to join Zhiche," said Piao, 38. "A startup company can be more focused on EV products and thus can achieve innovations more quickly."
Zhiche displayed a concept electric SUV before the Beijing Auto Show this year, complete with DeLorean-style doors that flip up. Zhiche plans to release the car next year.
There's also strong demand for branding and marketing specialists to help make household names out of startups with sights on initial public offerings.
Foxconn, Tencent
"Part of this EV startup bubble can be explained by hot money," said Jochen Siebert, managing director of JSC Automotive Consulting in Singapore.
"It reminds me a bit of the 1990s, when almost everything with internet or e-commerce was supported by private equity, and the stocks went through the roof."
A lot of that money is being spent on recruiting for the corporate suite, with companies backed by some of China's richest people hiring top executives from rivals and from Silicon Valley to help distinguish themselves.
Take Future Mobility Corp, an EV-maker backed by Gou's Foxconn Technology Group and Ma's Tencent Holdings Ltd. The company hired Daniel Kirchert, who was president of Dongfeng Infiniti Motor Co and Carsten Breitfeld, project manager for BMW AG's i8 plug-in sports car. Then it lured more managers from BMW.
"It is such a huge opportunity and advantage to start from zero," Kirchert said. "Our company offers a really big platform for talented people to reach their goals without hitting the glass ceilings they would have hit at traditional automakers."
Tesla Challengers
Internet entrepreneur William Li's NextEV Inc hired Padmasree Warrior, Cisco Systems Inc's former technology chief, to lead its U.S. operations.
Jia's Faraday Future Inc, an electric-car startup planning a $1-billion factory in Nevada to challenge Elon Musk and his Tesla Motors Inc, recruited Porter Harris from Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Harris left Faraday earlier this year.
The presence of those high profiles usually attracts workers who can actually build cars. Only about a quarter of the 4,000-plus NEVs approved by the government are in production, according to a National Development and Reform Commission survey.
Ma's Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is partnering with SAIC Motor Corp on an internet-connected SUV called the Roewe RX5.
Yet public subsidies that can total 60 percent of an EV's sticker price are helping fuel a manufacturing boom. For the first half of this year, China produced 177,000 NEVs, more than double the same period a year ago, the manufacturers' association said.
"Talent is one of many things these EV startups need to get right," Robin Zhu, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Sanford C Bernstein, said in an email.
"It may even be the most important, given how early stage many are at this point, and particularly given the realities of fundraising (investors back the best people)."
