Evergrande Auto (Hengchi) officially started scaled production of the Hengchi 5 in its Tianjin factory on Friday. Deliveries are scheduled for October of this year, Kallanish learns.

Evergrande thinks it's quite possible to realise a new energy vehicle sales target of 5.5 million units for year 2022. It hopes to realise a 20% NEV penetration rate preemptively. It also reported a new record high for August's performance. 

"So far, Hengchi has world-leading core technologies in the fields of vehicle manufacturing, chassis architecture, intelligent networking, power batteries, and autonomous driving," the company says.  

According to a press release, it acquired the world-leading NEV 3.0 chassis architecture with intellectual property rights and jointly established the H-PLATFORM 3.0 ultra-smart battery electric platform with Bosch and Edag. This platform is considered to be tailored to the Chinese market.

It developed the smart assistant driving technology with Bosch and Aptiv, and has released the Hengchi autonomous vehicle parking system. These technologies are aimed to realise autonomous driving under certain scenarios. 

It is partnering with Bosch, Continental, Aptiv, Faurecia, and CATL on creating a world-class supply chain system.

It is also developing a smart network system with Baidu on cutting-edge technologies such as supercomputing platforms and is introducing production equipment and techniques from Siemens, Schuler, and Kuka as part of the assets of its advanced manufacturing centres.

The Hengchi cars will be jointly designed by former designers from BMW, Audi, Benz, Nissan, and other leading carmakers.