Editor's note: Tracy Chen is an assistant research fellow from the School of International Development at UEA. The article reflects the author's views, and not necessarily those of CGTN.

The Chinese electric carmaker Qiantu Motor announced at the end of 2018 that it would team up with Mullen Technologies Inc., an American electric car and energy startup based in California, to bring an electric sports car under the Chinese brand to the U.S. market.

For decades, Chinese automakers have tried to break into the American car market but failed to do so. The only way for them to sell their cars to the U.S. is to have their products branded by a marque of another country.

For instance, Geely bought its way into the U.S. market by purchasing Volvo and manufactured the Volvo S90 in China. Similarly, to sell the product to the U.S., SAIC Motor needed to cooperate with GM to build Buick Envision in Shanghai. 

This time, however, Qiantu Motor has taken a different approach. The Chinese auto company is getting Mullen Technologies Inc. as a contractor to make products for it, like the way Apple does business with Foxconn.

According to the press release, the K50 will be assembled in the United States with imported ready-to-assemble components from China and key components sourced from America. By producing in the U.S., Qiantu Motor can avoid certain tariff issues.

Meanwhile, the Chinese auto company will benefit from Mullen's direct retail and commerce digital capabilities. Apart from its automobile dealerships around the country, Mullen Technologies' owns CarHub, a digital platform for buying, selling and owning a car, which will be used as a base for a dealer network to sell their vehicles.

The two companies introduced K50 as “a 402 bhp all-electric luxury sports car with aluminum frame and carbon fiber body closures” and promised that the electric sports car would be “unexpectedly affordable.”

Up until now, there is no official price for the K50 in the U.S. market. The market price of the K50 in China is 686,800 yuan and many believe that the price for the U.S. market will be around 100,000 U.S. dollars. So, will American customers buy it?

In the highly competitive automobile market, there is a clear supremacy in terms of certain brands and regions. Carmakers have little measurable advantage in each segment and price range.

If the K50 is positioned as an electric sports car and is targeting Elon Musk's Roadster, its quality, safety and performance should correspond to its brand positioning.

Compared to Tesla, Qiantu Motor is a complete newcomer. It is not that easy to persuade highly skeptical American customers to spend a large sum on an unfamiliar brand.

Toyota surpassed the three major North American automobile companies and won over the trust of American consumers because its vehicles are with high quality and reliability.

As a new brand that wants to gain a share of the U.S. market, it's necessary for Qiantu Motor to be reliable and even more reliable than Toyota. As for the K50, whatever the target is, it needs to be faster, more powerful and last longer between recharging, and its performance has to match its price in the U.S. market.

The good news is that, currently, traditional car manufacturers around the world haven't been fully engaged in producing electric sports cars and there are just a few similar products on sale in the market. In this field, Elon Musk's Roadster has an edge but it's much more expensive and it's not really a mass-produced model.

It's predicted that within one year or two, traditional European and American automobile giants will launch their new EV models, but before that, with its well-built electric sports car and with a reasonable price, Qiantu Motor may have a chance to capture the U.S. market.

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