China-based internet entrepreneurs and financial investors, including the likes of Tencent and Hillhouse Capital, are supporting NextEV to create a competitor to US electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors.
In that direction, the promoters have brought on board former Ford Motor executive Martin Leach in their bid to come up with a global automobile manufacturer, a Reuters reports said, quoting a NextEV spokesperson.
Experts with previous experience at Tesla, BMW and Volkswagen, among others, have also been hired for the EV venture.
Hillhouse is among the investors which backs US-based ride sharing service Uber.
NextEV is also supported by internet content provider Bitauto.com founder William Li, autohome.com.cn founder Xiang Li and Richard Liu, the founder of e-commerce site JD.com.
NextEV spokeswoman Jili Liu told the news agency: "The first model launched by NextEV will be an electric supercar... This EV supercar is expected to outperform all combustion (engine) supercars in the world."
The sportscar, set for introduction next year, will be capable of producing more than 1,000 horsepower and zooming from 0km to 100km an hour within three seconds.
The NextEV investors are said to have little or no experience in the automobile sector. Alibaba, Xiaomi Technology and Leshi are some of the technological firms in China who have either declared or considering investments in electric car segment.
