那个打算干掉特斯拉的中国人

未来的汽车将是纯电动、自动驾驶，有高速网络相连……而且免费。

而且，很可能是中国制造。

至少，亿万富翁创业者贾跃亭是这么看的，贾跃亭中国科技行业里有志通过精研技术改变汽车行业版图的新生代代表，他们的目标是对美国高档电动汽车先锋特斯拉发起冲击。

在北京乐视控股总部，身着黑色体恤衫和牛仔裤的贾跃亭在接受采访时说：“特斯拉是一家伟大的公司，把全球汽车业带进了电动时代。但我们（乐视控股）不仅仅是造车。我们认为汽车是装了四个轮子的智能移动设备，本质上跟手机或平板电脑没有区别。我们希望超越特斯拉，带领行业迈进新纪元。”

中国政府为了推动向清洁能源的电动汽车转移，最终取代汽油车辆，向财大气粗的科技公司开放了汽车行业，所以业内涌现了一波创业潮。但也有人很怀疑，乐视这样的初创企业要怎样实现宏大愿景。

为了显示决心，43岁的贾跃亭上周主持了LeSEE超跑概念电动车车发布会，瞄准特斯拉Model S的产品。这辆“智能、联网、自动驾驶”汽车还将在本周的北京车展上亮相。

贾跃亭对路透社表示：“人们都在质疑我们的想法，嘲笑我们，觉得一家小型IT公司不可能造出跟宝马和特斯拉之类世界知名品牌抗衡的汽车。坚持下来并不容易，但我们做出来了。”

内华达制造

乐视控股希望几年后能在拉斯维加斯附近的工厂生产LeSEE轿车。目前工厂正由乐视在美国的战略合作伙伴、贾跃亭参与投资的法拉第（Faraday Future）修建中。届时产品将在美国和中国销售。再往后，乐视还计划在中国生产电动汽车，而且可能会和北京汽车合作。

贾跃亭指出，联网电动汽车的定价模式将是“颠覆性”的，类似于乐视在中国推广的手机和电视。乐视经常被称为中国的Netflix，以后还会向驾驶者销售影视音乐等内容以及服务。这就是贾跃亭说“总有一天汽车会免费”的原因。短期内，这款车的颠覆性更可能是“性能翻倍，价格折半”。

除了乐视，百度、阿里巴巴、腾讯和小米等重量级科技公司都投资了多家电动汽车初创企业，如蔚来汽车和长城华冠。业内普遍预期中国将鼓励公交、出租和旅游公司使用电动汽车。

乐视控股联合创始人、副董事长刘弘告诉路透社：“我们用全新的方式来定义新款汽车……而不是抄袭苹果公司和特斯拉。我们的产品并非现有车型的升级版，而是革命性的……此前从未出现过。”

投资云服务

从机械角度讲，电动汽车较容易制造，从而降低了行业门槛。但不少人怀疑中国的初创公司要怎样获得资金，才能造出数以万计革命性的电动汽车，毕竟汽车制造十分复杂，从设计到采购上万种零部件和系统步骤繁琐。

戴姆勒称，大中华区业务负责人唐仕凯上月受邀赴乐视参观并了解其经营模式。

刘弘对路透社表示：“我告诉唐仕凯先生，我们将重新定义汽车。对我们来说，电动汽车只是另一块屏幕。我们认为未来的汽车将是互联网的延伸，是通过网络销售内容和服务的又一入口。”

贾跃亭无法回避资金问题。过去三年中，曾有人怀疑他失踪，并且由于跟已落马的令计划五弟令完成关系密切而被扣押了护照。令计划是去年因涉嫌贪腐接受调查的中共高官。

贾跃亭说他并不是玩失踪，而是在加利福尼亚的一家酒店研究特斯拉，组建电动车技术开发团队。他说：“那段时间确实比较艰难，因为外面谣言满天飞，公司内部也陷入了混乱。”据贾跃亭介绍，当时乐视就在把业务延伸到流媒体、手机和电视以外，“（如果）任何一项合资业务失败，我们都会破产。”

为了给筹集资金发展电动车业务，贾跃亭的姐姐抛售了手中的乐视股票，把所得资金以无息贷款方式借给了贾跃亭。贾跃亭也卖了部分股票。

贾跃亭说，令完成跟乐视控股的关系“只是财务投资”；他从未见过令完成，护照也从未被扣押过。

漫漫长路

贾跃亭在山西农村长大，曾在县地税局当过一段时间技术人员，后来自己开公司卖计算机配件，还开过餐馆，办过私立学校。就在中国电信进入农村市场之际，贾跃亭听取一位亲戚的建议开始销售手机基站天线电池。

2003年，贾跃亭开着二手丰田到了北京，打算用手中的20万元人民币帮助北京西伯尔通信科技有限公司通过移动流媒体业务发展。2007年，西伯尔在新加坡上市。随后，贾跃亭和刘弘一起注册了乐视。如今，乐视在中国、美国和印度有1.1万名员工，上市业务2014年实现68亿元人民币收入。

同事和朋友们说贾跃亭是个精明的生意人，“吃饭时会大方埋单”，“总在工作”。福布斯估算，贾跃亭的身家为48亿美元。

为了从乐视的IT背景向汽车行业过度，贾跃亭入股了设在美国加州的Atieva和法拉第，还跟阿斯顿马丁以及北京汽车建立了合作关系。

乐视超级汽车首席执行官、前上汽通用总经理丁磊说，在今后的汽车行业中，乐视的优势之一是没有过去的包袱。现有汽车厂商跟和传统发动机的渊源太深，无法迅速转向电动技术。

“你看，传统OEM汽车厂商是不可能颠覆自己的。但我们这样的公司就可以马上发展纯电动汽车。”

译者：Charlie

审校：夏林

Tomorrow’s cars will be all-electric, self-driving, connected to high-speed communications networks … and free.

And probably Chinese.

That, at least, is the vision of Jia Yueting, a billionaire entrepreneur and one of a new breed of Chinese who see their technology expertise re-engineering the automobile industry, and usurping Tesla Motors TSLA -0.76% , a U.S. pioneer in premium electric vehicle (EV) making.

“Tesla’s a great company and has taken the global car industry to the EV era,” Jia said in an interview at the Beijing headquarters of his Le Holdings Co, or LeEco. “But we’re not just building a car. We consider the car a smart mobile device on four wheels, essentially no different to a cellphone or tablet.“We hope to surpass Tesla and lead the industry leapfrogging to a new age,” said Jia, wearing a black T-shirt and jeans.

A wave of EV start-ups has emerged in China after the government opened up the auto industry to deep-pocketed technology firms to drive a switch to cleaner electric as an eventual alternative to gasoline cars. Skeptics wonder just how start-ups like LeEco will deliver on their grand visions.

As a sign of intent, 43-year-old Jia last week unveiled the LeSEE electric concept supercar, a rival to Tesla’s Model S. The “smart, connected and self-driving” car will be displayed at this week’s Beijing autoshow.

“People questioned our idea, a small IT company building a car to compete with the BMWs and Teslas of the world, and laughed at us. It wasn’t easy, but here we are,” Jia told Reuters.

Made in Nevada

LeEco hopes to start producing a version of the LeSEE in a few years at a plant being built near Las Vegas by U.S. strategic partner Faraday Future, in which Jia has invested. Those cars would be sold in the United States and China. Further ahead, the plan is to produce electric cars in China, too, probably through a partnership with BAIC Motor.

The web-connected electric cars will have a “disruptive” pricing model similar to phones and TV sets LeEco markets in China, Jia says. His company, often called China’s Netflix, will sell movies, TV shows, music and other content and services to drivers of its cars. That’s why he says “one day our cars will be free.” Nearer-term, the disruption is more likely to be “double the performance at half the price.”

Beyond LeEco, Chinese tech heavyweights including Baidu , Alibaba, Tencent and Xiaomi have funded more than half a dozen EV start-ups, such as NextEV and CH-Auto. It’s widely expected China’s bus, taxi and courier firms will be encouraged to go electric.

“We define our car in a whole new way … instead of copying Apple and Tesla,” LeEco co-founder and vice chairman Hank Liu told Reuters. “Our products are not upgraded from those that already exist. They are revolutionary … products that never existed before.”

Funding Clouds

While the entry barrier has been lowered as electric cars are, mechanically, relatively simpler to produce, skeptics query how China’s start-ups will fund and make tens of thousands of industry-changing EVs—from design through to procuring the 10,000 or so parts and systems needed for the finished product.

Daimler said Hubertus Troska, head of its Greater China business, was invited to LeEco last month to get to know the company and its business model.

“I told Mr. Troska we’re going to redefine the car,” Liu told Reuters. “EVs for us are just another screen. We see cars in the future as an extension of the Internet, another entry point for us to sell web-based content and services.”

Jia has also had to overcome questions on his funding. In the past three years, there was speculation he had disappeared and had his passport confiscated because of his ties to a brother of Ling Jihua, a high-ranking Communist Party official who was arrested last year and is under investigation for graft.

Jia says he did not go missing, but was in a California hotel researching Tesla and recruiting a team to develop EV technologies. “It was a difficult time for me because we faced a lot of external rumors and internal turmoil,” he said, noting LeEco was then expanding beyond its streaming, mobile and TV businesses. “(If) any of those ventures failed, we could have gone belly up,’ he said.

To help fund LeEco’s EV push, Jia’s sister sold her stake in the company and lent the money to him interest-free. He also sold part of his own stake.

He said Ling Wancheng, the disgraced official’s brother, is a “mere financial investor” in LeEco; he never met Ling Jihua; and his passport was never confiscated.

Long Road

Growing up in a rural Shanxi town in northern China, Jia worked briefly as a computer technician at a tax office before setting out on his own, selling computer accessories, and running restaurants and private schools. Acting on a tip from a relative, he began selling batteries to power cellphone tower antennas—just as China Telecom pushed into the rural hinterlands.

In 2003, he drove his used Toyota to Beijing, with 200,000 yuan (around $31,000 at current rates) in cash, seeking to grow his Sinotel Technologies business by adding simple mobile video streaming. He took the company public in Singapore in 2007. With Liu, he registered what is now LeEco – a group now employing 11,000 people in China, India and the United States. Its listed business had 2014 revenue of 6.8 billion yuan ($1.05 billion).

Colleagues and friends say Jia is a shrewd businessman, “generous in picking up the tab for meals” and “never stops working.” Forbes values him at $4.8 billion.

To vault from LeEco’s IT background to the auto industry, Jia has built ties with California-based Atieva and Faraday Future, and has a partnership with Aston Martin and a cooperative relationship with BAIC.

Ding Lei, LeEco’s auto chief and a former top official at General Motors’ China venture with SAIC Motor , says part of LeEco’s advantage in tomorrow’s auto industry is that it carries no baggage from today’s. Traditional automakers are too wedded to combustion engine technology to quickly jump to electric technology, he reckons.

“Look, this disruption can’t come from traditional OEMs (automakers). But a company like us, we can go directly to pure electric cars.”