Singulato Motors CEO Tiger Shen Hopes its iS6 EV Will Help Bring Blue Skies Back to Beijing

author: Eric Walz   

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — At the Silicon Valley Innovation and Entrepreneur Forum 2017 (SVIEF 2017) held in Silicon Valley last week, attendees learned about new automotive technologies from many leading companies in the field. SVIEF hosted the Next Car Summit as part of the event, where audience members learned about automotive start-ups and new technology for electric vehicles presented by key executives from a group of promising start-ups.

Among the speakers was Tiger Shen, co-founder and CEO of Singulato Motors, a China based manufacturer of EVs. During his presentation, Chen showed a video of the company's new iS6 electric SUV.

Singulato Motors was founded in 2014. As Chinese leading intelligent EV companies, Singulato Motors focuses on intelligent EV researching, developing and manufacturing in China, with vision to be the best Chinese intelligent EV brand. In April 2017, Singulato Motors launched the first type of production SUV- iS6, and will achieve mass production in 2018.

The Singular Motors CEO took to the stage with an important statement about the company's mission.

"It is our duty to get the blue sky back in Beijing and and other cities in China. We hope Beijing will welcome the sky looking like this" he told the audience, while revealing on a projector screen a picture of a bright blue sky.

Last month, the Chinese government announced plans that will eliminate internal combustion engine vehicles in an effort to curb pollution in China. Beijing's sky appears gray on many days due to excessive pollution levels around the city. Singulato hopes its electric SUV will contribute to cleaner air. "It's one of the very great reasons why I started my company" Shen said.

In Beijing, drivers of gasoline cars are barred from driving on one weekday per week. All-electric battery cars and heavily electrified plug-in hybrids are usually exempt.

The company's first production model is the electric SUV iS6. The stated power reserve on a single charge — 400 km.  Chen stated that 400 km of range is suitable for the majority of drivers, especially in crowded urban cities. While other companies may advertise a higher range, Chen stated that a longer range is not needed in China, as people tend to rely on rail travel for longer distances.

"We're targeting our EVs at young city dwellers in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and other large cities where buying a gasoline car is becoming more difficult because of purchase restrictions imposed by the government," Shen told Reuters last year.

"If they buy an EV, they could buy a car immediately as EVs are exempt from purchase restrictions. Tech-savvy young people are naturally going to gravitate toward EVs."

Chen also explained that its SUV will be able to drive autonomously, "Autonomous driving is very hot at this time", he said.

Chen told me that Singulato iS6 will use Nvidia's Xavier AI supercomputing platform to run the iS6 semi-autonomous system, and the vehicle will be equipped with a suite of sensor using deep-learning to make better self-driving decisions.

Production will be initially outsourced to an existing automaker with excess manufacturing capacity. The company says a semi-autonomous version of the iS6 SUV will be available in 2018, while a fully autonomous version is expected by 2020.

Eric Walz

Originally hailing from New Jersey, Eric is a automotive & technology reporter covering the high-tech industry here in Silicon Valley. He has over 15 years of automotive experience and a bachelors degree in computer science. These skills, combined with technical writing and news reporting, allows him to fully understand and identify new and innovative technologies in the auto industry and beyond. He has worked at Uber on self-driving cars and as a technical writer, helping people to understand and work with technology.