Burgeoning Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer Nio has provided us with yet more evidence we live in a strange timeline — it’s looking into making its own smartphones. Pull a reverse Apple, if you will. And while I’m personally not terribly interested or curious about what a Nio-branded phone might entail, the fact an automotive startup is enticed by such an idea at all says a lot about where the car industry is headed.
The news comes from none other than Nio’s CEO, William Li. Speaking to Chinese news service Sina in an interview published today, Li said that Nio has been motivated to explore the phone business by its customers, who supposedly want a phone that connects better to the EV maker’s products. It’s not about a new revenue stream, nor “commercial success,” in the chief executive’s words. “Getting the phone produced is easy, but building a good phone is challenging,” Li said — translation courtesy of CnEVPost.
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