Oppo Making Preparations To Enter Electric Car Industry

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Oppo wants to build its own electric car, following the footsteps of Apple Inc, Xiaomi and Huawei.

The electric vehicle industry is without a doubt buzzing with activity. With each passing day the industry sees a new entrant, while several firms openly express their intent to 1 day launch an EV.

Joining the bandwagon is Oppo which, having become a smartphone major, also wants to make a mark in the fledgling electric car industry.

Founder and CEO of Oppo, Tony Chen is said to be the person driving the project and over the past few weeks, Chen and his expert team are said to have conducted investigations to understand the car building process.

They reportedly met with officials from the Chinese Automotive Research Institute and Passenger Car Division and also with battery maker CATL which supplies batteries to Tesla.

Although not yet formally established, the Oppo electric car project is clearly on, for the electronics brand has also began hiring talents from the car industry and it has planned to locate its automotive division in Chengdu, China.

Moreover, it looks like Oppo will develop its electric car with high level autonomous functions, for it has appointed 2 top executives from its software engineering team to head the autonomous driving division.

Oppo has not decided to work on a electric car out of the blue. The company has published patents related to autonomous and unmanned driving, cameras, distance measuring devices, and electronic equipment for car positioning.

Also Tony Chan has previously claimed that Oppo will try building an EV in the future and that even in car manufacturing, like it does with electronic devices, Oppo will focus on areas where it can perform well.

Source – CarNewsChina.com