Beijing Electric Vehicle Company (BJEV), a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese state-owned automaker BAIC, aims to raise funds through an initial public offering (IPO) to facilitate the expansion of production bases in China, reports the China Daily newspaper. "We have already expanded our registered capital to CNY3 billion [USD458 million], but it is clearly not enough, so we are going for an IPO to finance our projects," said Hao Ziming, deputy party secretary of BAIC. BJEV aims to build another plant in Beijing for the production of electric vehicles (EVs), which will be in addition to existing plants in Beijing and Qingdao. "Our electric cars are able to drive a distance of 260 kilometres per charge, but it will not take long before we launch 300-km or even 400-km vehicles," said Hao.
Significance: The existing BJEV bases in Beijing and Qingdao are able to produce 20,000 and 50,000 vehicles per annum respectively, according to BJEV data, reports the China Daily. However, BJEV reportedly has plans to sell 500,000 units by 2020. In 2015, the company sold more than 20,000 units, double what it sold in the previous year, according to the report. Meanwhile, BJEV has already begun to announce international targets to sell vehicles in the United States. Earlier this year, BJEV opened a research-and-development (R&D) centre in Detroit, United States. However, there have been reports that BAIC has sold its stake in Atieva to an unnamed company, while contradictory reports have also emerged that BJEV is the purchaser of the shareholding in Atieva and that the electric supercar Arcfox 7 displayed at this year's Beijing Motor Show by BAIC is based on Atieva technology. The Arcfox 7 is understood to be designed by the BJEV R&D centre in Barcelona, Spain, which is a joint venture between Campos Racing of Spain and BAIC. Atieva is now understood to have two major Chinese shareholders − BJEV, which owns 25.02% of the company, and LeTV, also called Leshi, which is the second-largest shareholder of Atieva, according to a report by the China Daily. Leshi is also an investor in US EV start-up Faraday Futures.
