- General
- December 15, 2020
- 3 minutes read
Baidu Said To Mull Making Own EVs
The Chinese tech giant Baidu is considering starting a venture to make electric vehicles and has held talks with automakers…
The Chinese tech giant Baidu is considering starting a venture to make electric vehicles and has held talks with automakers regarding its possibility, Reuters reports. It’s said that Baidu is considering contract manufacturing or setting up a majority-owned joint venture with another automaker to produce its own electric cars.
According to Reuters, Baidu has held preliminary talks with Chinese automakers including Geely, GAC Group, and the state-owned FAW Group.
A Baidu move into producing electric cars will be a step-up compared to its fellow Chinese tech giants like Alibaba and Tencent. The three prominent tech giants have all made big bets on various electric car companies but have not set up any manufacturing operations of their own.
Notably, Baidu is a major investor in the Chinese electric car startup WM Motor and recently participated in a $1.5 billion funding round for the company. Seemingly, Baidu beginning to make electric cars will place it in competition with one of its portfolio investments.
Baidu already has an autonomous driving unit so could tap a little expertise from there in a case where it decides to begin producing electric vehicles, and doing so would mark a dramatic push to diversify its revenues as growth peaks in its core search business, wherein its revenue from that segment grew only 2% last year.
