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Chinese electric vehicle startup and Tesla challenger Xpeng Motors has exported its first batch of vehicles to Europe, expanding its global presence. It's the first time the automaker is selling its electric vehicles outside of its home country.

Xpeng loaded 100 of its G3i fully electric SUVs on a cargo ship which will be shipped to Norway, which has the highest EV adoption rate. Roughly 75% of all new vehicles sold in Norway are plug-in hybrids of fully-electric models.

With Xpeng's expansion to Norway, the EV startup will give Tesla some additional competition in both China and in Europe. The Tesla Model 3 has sold briskly in the Scandinavian country, but so have Tesla's in general. Tesla was the second best selling car brand in Norway in 2019, selling roughly 18.8 thousand cars last year, according to data from Statista.

Xpeng is shipping the latest version of its G3 to Norway, which first went on sale in 2019. The newest version offers a longer range and other technology improvements from the previous model. The upgraded G3i is available with an extended NEDC driving range of 323 miles (520 km). It was launched at this year's Chengdu Motor Show.

"The first European-spec super-long-range Xpeng G3 intelligent SUVs formally left for Norway today, which made us so proud. It indicates that Xpeng Motors has made headway in various links such as product R&D, intelligent manufacturing and market expansion, and its products started to be tested by overseas consumers," said Xia Heng, co-founder and president of Xpeng Motors.

The Guangzhou-based EV manufacturer will partner with Zero Emission Mobility AS (ZEM), a Norway's automobile dealer. ZEM will be responsible for marketing after-sale service to local consumers, according to China's news outlet Gasgoo.

Xpeng had to make some minor changes to the vehicles to meet local regulations and standards of the European market. The European-spec version however will include Xpeng's popular autonomous valet parking feature. The automated parking feature is supported by a suite of 20 sensors including ultrasonic radars, high-definition cameras and millimeter-wave radars.

Xpeng alos modified its AI-powered Xmart OS in-car Intelligent System which supports voice commands for many of the vehicle's controls. The system will now be able to recognize words in English.

Xpeng is a strong competitor to Tesla in China, but now Tesla too is planning to ship its electric vehicles built at its Shanghai factory to Europe. Tesla's Shanghai factory is its first overseas plant.

Two weeks ago, Bloomberg reported that Tesla also plans to export its Model 3s built in China to Europe in an effort to boost profitability. The California company began delivering the first Model 3's built in China in December of last year.

The China-built Model 3s for delivery outside the country likely will start mass production in the fourth quarter of this year, the people said, asking not to be identified because the details are private. 

"Exporting Model 3s to Europe would take advantage of China's lower production cost base in a bid to improve profitability," said Michael Dean, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst.

Xpeng Motors was founded in 2014 and its electric vehicles are viewed as a popular alternative to Tesla models in China.

Xpeng's second electric model is the P7 smart sedan which went on sale in April. The electric sedan comes loaded with advanced technology, including self-parking like the G3. It's billed as a lower priced alternative to the Tesla Model S in China, costing less than half the price.

The automaker says it's offering the same level of technology, connectivity features and performance for around $50,000 less than Tesla's flagship Model S sedan. Xpeng's P7 also achieves an NEDC Range of 439 Miles, the longest of all EVs sold in China, including the Model S. The car features an all-wheel-drive setup with dual electric motors.

Xpeng Motors is backed by China's e-commerce giant Alibaba, which is China's equivalent of Amazon.

The company raised $1.5 billion in its U.S. IPO in August becoming a public company. Xpeng's stock now trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock symbol "XPEV."

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Source: FutureCar

Aldi has become the latest overseas supermarket operator to open stores in China, the 8^th was recently opened in Shanghai,  but the German company faces a battle to win over customers in a fragmented market in which foreign operators have traditionally struggled: Tesco and Spain’s Dia abandoned operations in the country and Germany’s Metro is selling its China unit. Walmart and Carrefour have struggled to gain more than a single-digit market share.

Overseas companies have been hampered by remote decision making and difficulties adapting to Chinese shoppers’ preference for making regular small purchases of fresh vegetables to cook at home rather than weekly shops, according to analysts. However Aldi is taking a different approach, opting for smaller, smarter retail stores that are equipped with WeChat technology and offer speedy delivery options. The small size lets ALDI integrate the store deep in neighbourhoods and communities while offering around 1,000 products ranging from Ready-to-Eat meals to body care products.  It plans to launch over 100 of these stores going forward.

Where WeChat Fits In

Aldi’s scan-and-go WeChat mini-program indicates its commitment to creating a localized Chinese shopping experience, negating the need for checkouts. Home delivery is offered within a 3km range. They take a page out of Alibaba's smart Hema/Freshippo stores:  smaller, more centrally-located supermarkets selling quality imported grocery items. It is estimated that e-commerce sales account for 60% of total sales at Freshippo, indicating that all the money invested in smart retail technology is worth it.

Tmall Global as a Launchpad

Aldi first tested the China market in April 2017 by launching a flagship store on Tmall Global – what many to consider to be a brand’s official presence in China.

Tmall Global sells imported cross-border e-commerce items that don’t have to be formally imported in China, skipping over lengthy product registration and approval processes. Aldi sells cheap, high-quality private-label items such as dried apricots, Knoppers chocolate wafers, and Farmdale milk powder.

But what's more is that Aldi opened a sourcing office in Hong Kong long ago in 2015, enabling it to build out a robust supply chain for its Asia operations (including Australia). This means that it has been preparing for the China market for quite some time. Aldi's Tmall store gave it a channel to test new products and customers' reaction to them, without having to export them in bulk and incur inventory risk.

The three main channels through which customers can buy Aldi products: offline retail, WeChat delivery, and Tmall.

• Offline retail gives customers the chance to discover and try new products in the store, which is important for categories such as fresh groceries.

• The delivery services give customers the option of ordering food when they don't feel like going to the store, or if they forgot to purchase an item, or even if they just don't feel like carrying all those heavy groceries home.

• And lastly, Tmall Global gives customers the option of purchasing imported cross-border e-commerce items that may be more difficult to find in offline retail stores in China. For Aldi, it also gives management the ability to test new products online and customers' reaction to them before exporting them in bulk to China.

Even before Covid-19, mobile payment platforms were experiencing a boom in the U.S. and China. Apple Pay (U.S.) and Alipay (China) have radically changed the way people transact, offering secure, contactless payment options through mobile phones. Though both platforms are growing, Alipay is outperforming its U.S. peer: As of late 2019, Bain & Company found that only 9% of American consumers had adopted Apple Pay while 81% of Chinese consumers used Alipay. Given the size difference between the two countries, the difference between the number of Alipay users in China and Apple Pay users in the U.S. is staggeringly large. What are some of the factors driving this stark contrast?

Based on our extensive financial services industry experience and work with platform companies, we found two key strategic drivers for successful platform adoption: 1) Create value for all parties and 2) Monetize the ecosystem, not just the product. So far, Apple Pay has only marginally accomplished the first while Alipay has mastered both. Other platform leaders can learn from their examples.

Apple Pay focused on the consumer.

The Steve Jobs-driven culture of focusing relentlessly on customer experience was core to Apple’s development of Apple Pay, which launched in 2014. The premise was simple: Apple Pay relied on encrypted near-field communication (NFC) signals from point of sale devices that would allow users to pay with their iPhones instead of a credit card. Apple Pay seemed to offer a genuinely futuristic consumer experience that was secure, seamless, and fast: NFC technology is extremely quick, and consumers can use their fingerprint to authenticate the transaction, significantly reducing fraud. But for the average U.S. consumer, paying with Apple Pay only saved a few seconds during in-store transactions and thus was only marginally more convenient than paying with a debit or credit card.

Apple was less focused on mutually beneficial partnerships with banks and merchants. Assuming customers would adopt their platform quickly, Apple attempted to monetize it from the very beginning and charged banks and issuers around 0.15% per transaction for Apple Pay — on top of regular credit card processing fees, which range from 1.15% + $0.05 to 3.15% + $0.10 per transaction. This meant that there was little incentive to adopt the new technology — especially given implementation costs for new NFC-equipped point of sale terminals, which could cost between $1,000 and $2,000 when accounting for necessary software and training for employees. Around the time of Apple Pay’s launch, only around 10% of all point of sale terminals were NFC enabled, and the cost challenge to merchants and limited benefit to consumers hampered adoption.

In 2019, five years after its launch, Apple Pay’s domestic growth remained slow: Only around 6% of people who could use Apple Pay at a physical point of sale were doing so, despite the fact that almost all point-of-sale terminals that are shipped in North America today are NFC enabled. There’s good reason to believe the number of users has grown significantly during the pandemic, but it would require years of exponential growth in adoption to even begin to match Alipay’s dominance in China.

Alipay focused on creating value for all parties, not just for consumers.

Alipay, which was spun off from Alibaba in 2011 and became Ant Financial (now Ant Group) in 2014, grew from a consumer need for a trusted, verified way to pay for goods purchased from parent company Alibaba’s massive e-commerce sites. Alipay was the solution, but the strategy behind it went beyond payments.

Alipay charges around a 0.6% transaction fee to merchants to process a transaction, roughly half of the fee for processing local credit cards. While the fee is more expensive than allowing customers to use cash, merchants could often expect a lift in sales that came from accepting Alipay. Further, for merchants, the implementation cost to accept Alipay in stores is extremely low, as Alipay doesn’t rely on NFC or any specialized point-of-sale system, but relies on QR codes, which require little more than a camera and an internet connection to make a purchase.

Alipay took a different approach to creating value and monetizing the platform than Apple Pay. It shared many types of consumer insights with merchants, so they could offer new services to clients and launch accurate promotions for free. Ant Group worked with merchants and consumers who used Alipay to improve security protection and reduce losses, helping merchants make more money and decrease their risk. Small to medium-sized businesses flocked to Alipay to capture new business with minimal investment. From 2014 to 2018, the number of merchants that accepted Alipay went from approximately 1 million to 30 million, meaning roughly 70% of all merchants in China accepted the platform.

As Alipay grew, Ant Group was also able to use the data to build new partnerships and offer new services, which they monetized. Trillions of dollars of transactions flow through Alipay versus billions on Apple Pay. Based on the payment data that Ant Group receives, the company can offer a host of high-margin products to both consumers and merchants. For young and lower-class consumers, Ant Group offers credit cards and wealth management services. For small to medium-sized merchants, Ant offers small, short-term loans. These products are not traditionally available to these segments and are hugely valuable. The success of these products has prompted Ant Group’s valuation to go from $75 billion in 2016 to $200 billion just four years later.

What aspiring platform leaders can learn.

To be sure, there are caveats to the story. First, there are important differences between the U.S. and Chinese mobile payments space. Among them, China is jumping from cash to mobile payments while the U.S. is transitioning from credit cards to contactless payments, which include mobile payments and “tap to pay” credit and debit cards. The mobile internet also evolved much more rapidly in China than the U.S., and mobile payments were a logical part of that evolution. Additionally, the Chinese economy has grown very rapidly, giving Chinese payments players — including Alipay’s main competitor, WeChat Pay — strong tailwinds.

Consumer preferences are also changing. Prior to Covid-19, many U.S. consumers and merchants were concerned with speed, convenience and security when transacting. Now, these same parties are focused on health and safety and are adopting contactless payments in greater numbers. In this context, Apple Pay has emerged as a solution to a different problem than the one it originally meant to solve.

This shift in preferences, already clearly underway, may require that payment companies think about value differently than before. The lesson for platform leaders, therefore, has two parts. First, leaders must provide value for all parties on the platform by addressing high-priority pain points, which may change over time. Second, platform leaders must monetize the ecosystem and not just the product, ensuring that they do not burden customers on one side of platform and hamper overall adoption in the process. By learning from mobile payments and considering the strategic drivers of adoption, platform leaders in other industries can ensure they are thought of as more Alipay than Apple Pay.

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Source: Harvard Business Review: Ian Gross, Kristofer “Kriffy” Perez and Bee-Lian Quah

The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China has released its European Business in China – Position Paper 2020/2021 (Position Paper). This annual publication delivers to the Chinese Government over 800 detailed recommendations for improving the business environment, spread across 34 industry sectors and horizontal issues. The Position Paper details how persistent issues, such as limited market access and a complex regulatory environment, prevent European businesses from contributing fully to China’s sustainable development.

This significant amount of untapped market potential could help to not only boost economic growth, but also stave off serious problems that have for some time threatened China’s development, like its burgeoning debt situation and rapidly ageing population. While the European Chamber has been advocating for increased market access and a level playing field for its members for the past two decades, it is now critical for China to enact meaningful reforms due to the economic devastation wreaked by the COVID-19 pandemic and the looming threat of decoupling.

Although European companies remain committed to the market, a number of ‘dichotomies’ that have emerged in recent years raise questions over which direction China will eventually decide to move in:

• The ‘one economy, two systems’ model, which divides the private and state-owned economies
• The country’s economic potential versus its market access regime
• The persistent divide between China’s rhetoric and the reality on the ground
• The clash of China’s charm offensive towards European business and its ‘wolf warriors’ in Europe

These issues are further compounded by the increased politicisation of doing business in China. This is a serious factor that threatens business operations in ways that companies can neither predict nor control. European leaders currently still have the appetite for engagement, but public opinion in the Old Continent is souring on China: voters are voicing their concerns over the unbalanced economic relationship, allegations of forced labour in Xinjiang and the autonomy of Hong Kong. These issues present a real challenge for the EU and China to find an effective way forward before the window of opportunity closes.

It is therefore imperative that the EU and China strive for a political agreement on the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) by the end of 2020. A half-baked deal that leaves the most critical issues unaddressed would be unwelcome and futile. Instead, it must deliver tangible results and secure open and fair markets on both sides to bolster the relationship and lay the groundwork for further productive engagement.

“Having inked bold economic agreements with numerous diverse partners in recent years, it is not revolutionary that the EU should expect a market that is as open and fair as its own when entering into such an agreement with China,” said Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China. “After more than 30 painful rounds of CAI negotiations, there’s a real sense that this is now or never.”

Please click here to download the report (registration witth an email required).

The country is making the transition from net importer of ideas to net innovator, and as it does, it is finding that good patent laws matter. Whilst addressing the recent Global Trade in Services Summit, President Xi Jinping stated ‘China will work with all countries in enhancing the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) and actively promote the development of the digital economy and sharing economy’. At the end of 2019 the general offices of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council have jointly issued a directive calling for intensified protection of IPR:  ‘Strengthening IPR protection is the most important content of improving the IPR protection system and also the biggest incentive to boost China's economic competitiveness.  By 2022, China will strive to effectively curb IPR infringement, and largely overcome challenges including high costs, low compensation and difficulties in providing evidence for safeguarding intellectual property rights’.

A case of this policy in action was demonstrated in September this year when nine people in Shanghai were sentenced up to six years in prison on for infringing on the copyright of Danish toymaker LEGO. The toys the group designed, produced and sold were under the brand name LEPIN, similar to LEGO. LEPIN's packaging, design and colour were all similar to that used by LEGO. The gang produced and sold nearly 4.25 million boxes of their copycat products worth over 300 million yuan, including 634 different models, from September 11, 2017 to April 23, 2019.

IPR infringement is a particularly worrying issue for new foreign business, and the policy document calls for China to make greater efforts to stepping up international cooperation in IPR protection, facilitating communication between domestic and foreign rights holders, and providing support in overseas IPR disputes.

Overall, China’s IP regime has made significant strides in the past few decades. For instance, China’s world leadership in patent quantity—though not in quality—signals its commitment to develop a robust innovation ecosystem at home. Minimum damage payouts for violations have continually increased, as have durations of patent protection. China even became the most litigious country in terms of the number of IP-related cases as early as 2005, and the number of cases has increased at a rate of over 40 percent per year for the past two years. In 2014, China debuted three specialized IP courts, and there are as many as 19 more in the pipeline. And contrary to popular expectations, foreign plaintiffs have actually fared better in patent litigation in these courts than their Chinese counterparts.

China now ranks second globally (excluding tax haven countries) in annual spending on acquisition of foreign IP as well as in gross research and development expenditure. In short, IP infringement remains a significant problem in China and the country’s IP protection regime still has shortcomings but robust change is occurring at China’s own initiative.

China IPR Procedures.

Patent registration procedure for inventions

• File the patent application, submit relevant documents, and pay the filing costs (RMB 900 or US$128);
• CNIPA accepts the application and conducts a preliminary examination (within 18 months from the filing date);
• CNIPA conducts substantive examination (on the applicant’s request); and
• CNIPA registers the designated patent and grants a standard patent for the invention.

Patent registration procedure for utility models or designs

• File the patent application, submit relevant documents, and pay the filing costs (RMB 500 or US$71);
• CNIPA accepts the application and conducts a preliminary examination; and
• CNIPA register the designated patent and grant a standard patent for the utility models or designs.

Trademark registration procedure

• Check whether the trademark is already registered and the category of the trademark;
• Submit an application form and other relevant documents to the TMO;
• TMO accepts the application;
• TMO conducts preliminary and substantive examination (within nine to twelve months of the filing date);
• TMO publishes a notification (followed by a three-month period to consider any objections); and
• TMO issues a trademark registration certificate.

The procedure generally takes about 14 to 18 months. Within three months from the date of publication, any person can file an opposition against the trademark. A trademark in China is valid for 10 years and renewal of registration must be filed within 12 months before the date of expiration.

Copyright registration procedure

• Apply with a sample of the work;
• CNAC/CPCC accepts the application and conducts an examination; and
• CNAC/CPCC issues the certificate.

For further information on China IPR issues, we suggest you visit the EU IPR SME Helpdesk: https://www.china-iprhelpdesk.eu which has the most up to date information on all IPR issues and gives free guidance on procedures and best practices.

Myanmar’s pushback against China, which is trying to widen its influence through the China Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), among other issues has been influenced by Pakistan’s experience in China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Sri Lanka's Hambantota Port project. Myanmar’s all-powerful generals have drawn lessons from these experiences and highlighted reservations against the Chinese investment.

The CPEC model, which has led to Pakistan’s structural dependence on China, is now being felt in the CMEC, according to an opinion piece ‘Rescuing Myanmar From the Chinese Debt Trap’ recently published in Myanmar’s leading English media outlet The Irrawaddy.

In terms of geography, the Chinese have proposed that the CMEC (part of BRI) would start from China’s pivotal Yunnan province, which shares borders with Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. From Ruili city on the China-Myanmar border, the corridor would head towards Mandalay, Myanmar’s former royal capital on the banks of the Irrawaddy River in the northern part of the country. From there, it could extend towards the east and west to Yangon New City and the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone, in the western Rakhine province. During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Myanmar in January, two agreements were signed - establishing the Kyaukphyu Deep Sea Port (KDSP) and setting up the Special Economic Zone (SEZ). By setting up the KDSP, the Chinese are hoping to lower their dependence on the Straits of Malacca, which is China’s main trade artery, linking the Indian and the Pacific oceans: an over-reliance on which leaves China vulnerable to geo-political outside factors.

The Kyaukphyu Deep Sea Port is also critical for China’s energy security. The port houses an oil and gas pipeline, supplying energy to Yunnan. It is estimated that under an elaborate plan, China is targeting a massive investment of around $100 billion in Myanmar’s economy—a figure is over and above $62 billion funding for CPEC. China has proposed 38 projects under CMEC but Myanmar so far has approved only nine (six are outlined below). Since last year Myanmar has decided that it will only implement the projects that will be mutually beneficial.

Looking back at the last three decades, Chinese investment in Myanmar reached its peak during the 2010-2011 fiscal years after President Thein Sein’s government took office. In the 2011-2012 fiscal years, Chinese investment began a rapid decline after the controversial $3.6 billion China-backed Myitsone hydropower project was suspended amid public outcry over the dam’s social and environmental impacts. Myanmar continues to suspend the construction of Myitsone Dam. The dam is one of seven hydropower projects planned for the upper reaches of the Irrawaddy River as well as the Mali and N’Mai rivers, at whose confluence the Irrawaddy begins.

It is certain that China will remain to be a decisive economic influence for Myanmar which is also a potentially crucial partner in its BRI and other economic plans. In terms of foreign investment figures, China is now Myanmar’s largest investor as well as biggest trade partner.

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Source: The Irriawaddy, The Economic Times.

Sankeshu Paint will serve as the official exclusive paint supplier of the Beijing 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Established in 2003 Sankeshu is part of the Three Trees Group.

Chairman and President of Three Trees Hong Jie, says his company's mission of “making homes healthier and cities more beautiful” connects with Beijing 2022’s concept of “delivering a green Olympic Winter Games”. Sankeshu becomes the seventh official exclusive supplier for Beijing 2022. We have a look at company below:

SKSHU Paint Co., Ltd. (“3TREES”) has been committed to building healthy homes by providing an integrated 6-in-1 one-stop system of green construction materials and services, encompassing interior and exterior wall coatings, waterproofing products, insulation materials, auxiliary materials, floor coatings and construction. 3TREES went public on the A-share Main Board of Shanghai Stock Exchange in 2016, being the first national paint company that issued stocks. The brand value was worth 23.985 billion yuan in 2019 and became a coating enterprise among the "Top 500 Private Enterprises in China". Headquartered in Putian, Fujian Province, has a center in Shanghai and has or is constructing 9 production bases in Sichuan, Henan, Tianjin, Anhui, Hebei, Guangdong, Hubei and other places, 3TREES is now an enterprise group with 20 wholly owned or controlling companies.

Company Snapshot for SKSHU Paint Co., Ltd.

• EMPLOYEES (All Sites): 3,899
• ASSETS (MIL USD): 807
• REVENUE (MIL USD): 848.84
• TICKER SYMBOL: 603737
• FISCAL YEAR END: DEC
• SALES GROWTH %: 66.64%
• NET INCOME GROWTH: 82.55%
• ADDRESS: 518 Liyuan North Avenue Licheng District Putian, 351100. China

Key Company personel

• Jie Hong, Chairperson
• Dedian Lin, Director
• Guoqin Fang, Director
• Lizhong Lin, Director

Its international website is found at https://www.3treespaint.com and China website at https://www.skshu.com.cn

As one of the top 30 paint manufacturing enterprises in the world, the company heavily promotes its  ecological culture, green brand and healthy products from a modern eco-friendly plant.

In 2019, 8 internet giants newly invested in over 400 startups in China and overseas. They have become more conservative about investing in B2C & startups since 2018. They eye on the next blue ocean market, i.e. B2B business.

Baidu - invested mainly on enterprise services, and medical & health
Alibaba - invested mainly on enterprise services, finance, IT, and media & entertainment
Tencent - invested mainly on enterprise services, finance, transport, and media & entertainment
Xiaomi - IT, and lifestyle services

The very detailed full reprort is avaialble from the Fung Business Intelligence website here:  https://lnkd.in/grkRuy9

It appears that Tesla’s expansion into the Chinese EV market is maintaining its momentum, with data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CPCA) revealing that the American electric car maker has sold 11,041 vehicles last month. Such numbers allowed Tesla to become China’s leading electric car maker in July 2020.

Local reports indicate that the majority of Tesla’s July sales in China were comprised of Made-in-China Model 3, which were produced at Gigafactory Shanghai. This is quite encouraging, as it shows that the locally-produced all-electric sedan is starting to get embraced by the mainstream market. If Tesla could maintain this pace, the company could be a familiar sight in the local market even before it ramps the Made-in-China Model Y, a vehicle that would likely outsell the Model 3.

Tesla has so far exhibited strength in China this year, with its vehicle sales maintaining a healthy level despite the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Reports also indicate that the production of the Model 3 in Gigafactory Shanghai continues to get optimized, with speculations pointing to a production rate of more than 4,000 vehicles per week. This milestone was reportedly achieved by the facility’s Phase 1 zone with only two working shifts.

As China pushes for electrification, industry watcher and researcher @DKurac noted that the country’s New Energy Vehicle sales estimate for the year remains unchanged at about 1.1 million units for 2020, a 10% decline year-over-year. Yet interestingly enough, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) has also noted that Tesla sales for 2020 are estimated at about 100,000 vehicles. Such a feat would be impressive for Tesla, especially since consumer deliveries for the Model 3 only started this January.

Tesla’s push into the Chinese EV market is now hitting its stride, and this is represented by the rapid buildout of the Model Y factory in the Phase 2 area of the Gigafactory Shanghai complex. Over the past months, workers have been pushing to complete the new facility as quickly as possible, and so far, great progress has been made. Recent drone flyovers of the Gigafactory Shanghai complex show that the Model Y factory’s exterior is all but completed, and work is now focused on equipping the facility with production equipment.

If Tesla continues this pace, it would not be surprising to see the Made-in-China Model Y entering trial production later this year. This could pave the way for a serious production ramp of the all-electric crossover by the first quarter of next year, allowing Tesla to extend its reach into the country even further. The Model Y is a crossover, after all, and it competes in the highly-lucrative and popular crossover market.

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By Simon Alvares for Teslarati

China’s Tianwen-1 Mars mission launched successfully Thursday, initiating a phase of deep space and interplanetary exploration. A Long March 5 rocket launched the Tianwen-1 orbiter and rover from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center at 12:41 a.m. Eastern. Successful Trans-Mars injection was confirmed around 40 minutes later by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.

The flight path took the Long March 5 over the Philippines and close to the capital Manila. Spent stages were planned to drop into the surrounding seas. China’s Yuanwang-class tracking ships assisted launch operations, along with support from the European Space Agency’s ESTRACK facilities. First acquisition of the spacecraft as it separated from its Long March 5 launcher was expected to be made by the 15-meter antenna in Kourou, French Guiana. The roughly five metric ton wet mass spacecraft is now on a seven-month journey to the Red Planet. 

“The Tianwen-1 mission is a major landmark project in the process of building China’s aerospace power , and a milestone project for China’s aerospace to go further and deeper into space,” mission deputy commander Wu Yansheng said in a CASC statement.

Tianwen-1 is due to arrive at Mars in February 2021, entering a highly elliptical orbit. The spacecraft will then move to a near-polar orbit with a periapsis of 265 kilometers for 2-3 months before the rover landing attempt. The orbiter and rover together carry 13 science payloads for a range of detections of the Martian atmosphere, magnetosphere, surface, subsurface and climate.Tianwen-1 is China’s first independent interplanetary mission. Missions to near-Earth objects, a Mars sample return, possible Voyager-like probes and a Jupiter system orbiter are planned for the decade ahead. 

Delayed landing attempt

The delay will allow the orbiter to survey the candidate landing sites with its cameras and provide the lander with the data required to make its landing attempt. China has selected a portion of Utopia Planitia, south of Viking 2, as the landing area for the 240-kilogram rover. The selection was made based on science goals and engineering constraints, which include low elevation to provide more atmosphere and time to slow the lander’s descent as well as the solar power needs of the rover. The landing ellipsis will be 100 by 20 kilometres.

The early part of the lander’s entry and descent will be aided by aeroshell and parachute know-how from the Shenzhou human spaceflight missions. A blunt-body aeroshell will help slow the speed of the entry vehicle from around 4.8 kilometers per second to 460 meters per second over the course of 290 seconds. A disk-band-gap supersonic parachute will then further slow the craft to a speed of 95 meters per second over the next minute and a half. Retropropulsion systems from China’s lunar landers will then do the rest of the work. Technologies proven on the Chang’e-3 and -4 missions China sent to the moon in 2013 and 2019, respectively, will provide altimetry and hazard avoidance.

Tianwen-1 Science goals

The orbiter carries seven science payloads including medium- and high-resolution cameras, the latter comparable to HiRise on NASA’s 2005 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission. It also carries a magnetometer, a sounding radar and instruments for atmospheric and ionosphere detections. The orbiter, which will also perform a relay function, is designed to operate for one Mars year, or 687 Earth days.

The rover, designed to last 90 Mars days, carries six instruments, including a laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy experiment similar to that carried by NASA’s Curiosity rover for detecting surface elements, minerals and rock types. As well as topography and multispectral imagers, the vehicle has payloads related to climate and magnetic field detections. The rover also carries a ground-penetrating radar. Elena Pettinelli of Roma Tre University, Italy, who was involved in the ground-penetrating radar experiments on the Chang’e-3 and -4 rovers, says the instruments on orbiter and rover could potentially provide a lot of new information.

Into deep space

Tianwen-1 is designated as the first in a new series of interplanetary and deep space exploration. The missions build upon on China’s Chang’e lunar exploration exploits and plans. Next is the tentatively named ZhengHe mission, which aims to collect samples from near-Earth asteroid 2016HO3/469219 Kamo’oalewa and return these to Earth before heading to main belt comet 133P/Elst-Pizarro. The mission profile requires launch to take place in 2022.

A mission featuring two “Interstellar Heliosphere Probes” is also being pushed. Two launches would use a Jupiter assist to follow up on the discoveries of the Voyagers. In addition, concepts for missions to Jupiter are being studied for launch in 2030, which could complement the studies of the Jovian system by NASA’s Europa Clipper and ESA’s JUICE missions.

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Source: By Andrew Jones for Sapce News

Chinese banks are already huge. Their total assets now surpass those of American and European banks. They are also providing more cross-border credit, the bread and butter of international banks. The sum they lend overseas has grown by 11% a year since 2016. More surprising to outsiders, they are gaining clout in the sophisticated universe of capital markets, too. Last year Chinese banks earned three times more investment-banking fees than all Asian rivals combined (excluding Japan).

Chinese banks have long been absorbed by their home market, where they have a 98% share, however in recent years Banks have followed their corporate clients, themselves inclined to grow beyond their saturated home market. They finance trade, take local deposits from local subsidiaries and serve their mundane needs, like cash management or foreign exchange.

They also fund Chinese-built infrastructure in emerging markets. Thanks to huge balance-sheets and inside knowledge of contractors’ history, they often outcompete foreign peers. The Big Four (Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), China Construction Bank and Agricultural Bank of China) now have a total of 618 branches outside the mainland. Foreign assets account for 9% of their books. Their footprint differs from that of Western peers: Chinese banks supply two-thirds of all cross-border lending within emerging markets. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been a huge catalyst for them. Chinese banks have lent nearly $600bn to 820 official BRI projects since 2013, reckons RWR, a consultancy. Unofficial sums are probably bigger.

Last year regulators cleared the way for full foreign takeovers of local banks. They then allowed outsiders to control wealth-management firms, pension-fund managers and brokers. In April foreign-ownership caps were also removed on securities firms. The world’s A-team of money managers is teaming up with locals or seeding subsidiaries in the hope of grabbing a slice of China’s $45trn financial-services market.

Banks of Mainland China

Policy Banks:

Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank*     亚洲基础设施投资银行

*Not strictly a  Chinese bank it is multilateral development bank that aims to improve economic and social outcomes in Asia. The bank currently has 103 members and is headquartered in Beijing.

State Owned Commercial Banks:

Commercial Banks:

Internet & Private Banks:

WeBank (Shenzhen) - The first private bank and Internet bank in China, initiated by Tencent.

MYbank (Hangzhou) - Internet bank in China, established by ANT Financial Services Group.

Shanghai Huarui Bank

Wenzhou Minshang Bank

Liaoning Zhenxing Bank