Atieva to surprise Tesla with a look alike Model S come December

Come December this year Atieva, a startup Silicon Valley that was first known to have made Chinese buses batteries is all set to give Tesla a run for its Model S. images of the design of the car with its manufacturing facility has been revealed.

According to the document that Atieva filed last year with the state of California, the vehicle will go by the name Atvus and will come with a 4-door sedan that looks very much like the Model S.

The profile of Atieva has been hyped over the summer with videos that show a van that has electric battery and also a drivetrain that was outsmarting many high-end cars like Dodge Viper, Ferrari and of course, Model S. the van names Edna is said to have the same acceleration and range as that of Tesla with a 2.74 second 0-60mph dash.

Deputy general manager of Atieva in China, Zhang Xin, made a disclosure in September to Chinese reporters saying that the car will come with rear and front electric motors that are fully independent with the capacity to accelerate from 0-100kmh in not more than 3 seconds.

Although Atieva is yet to disclose where its full-scale factory is located, there are, however, two facilities located in Silicon Valley that is not far from Tesla’s factory. Both companies are known to have workshops and laboratories where they develop vehicles. According to manufacturing director of Atieva in an interview granted to Reuters, the company is interested in having an assembly plant that is US based that will have the ability to at first build not less than 20, 000 cars and then increase it to 130, 000 yearly.

Atieva only provided an image of Dayang Motorcycle company located in Louyang when it was asked to show its manufacturing facility.

The company came into existence in 2007 when Sheaupyng Lin and Bernard Tse, the founders formed it. The company at first concerned itself with the development of electric drivetrains and batteries for buses in China. The company, however, had a change of heart in 2014 when $100 million by 2 Chinese firms was made resulting in close to 50% stake in the company.

With that investment, Atieva embarked on developing a full autonomous electric car that will rival with Tesla autonomous vehicles.

However, a friction was noticed among the investors which led one of the investors, LeEco to start its own startup in electric vehicle manufacturing known as Faraday Future which Atieva did not know about. LeEco, later on, announced that it was going to develop a luxury EV that is connected known as the LeSEE.

Another investor, BAIC made attempts to have access to drivetrain technology and battery of Atieva, which was not reported to have scaled through. So in the early part of this year, BAIC sold its stakes to Jia Yueting as sources say.

LeEco nor Atieva are yet to comment on the requests on calls to make a comment but whatever happens, Tesla should watch over its back as a new competitor is set to take it by surprise by December.