It wouldn’t be a good day without another Chinese EV startup. Radten (Chinese name Ruiteng) is a brand of Chery Automobile. This week they officially opened its factory in Shijiazhuang, roughly 300km from Bejing in Hebei province. The full name of the automaker is Hebei Ruiteng New Energy Automobile Co. The English name is Radten Motors. The first car is called RT1, and they claim it is near the mass production version and will launch it in the second half of the year.
The plant’s annual capacity is 100 000 cars. It seems Chinese EV startups still didn’t learn not to scale too early too fast. Having a vast empty plant because ‘who knows, maybe we will jump from 0 to 100 000 cars in a year’ is still a popular mindset in China.