New EV brand born… meet Avatar Technology

Chinese car maker Changan Automobile has announced plans for a new electric car brand called Avatar Technology.

The brand – which is effectively a rebranding of the former joint venture between Changan and another Chinese car maker Nio – will reportedly have development input from telecommunications giant Huawei and battery manufacturer CATL.

Revealed in an online event in China overnight, Avatar Technology – or, simply, Avatar – has plans of muscling in on the fast-emerging EV segment with an emphasis on technology and software.

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And there’s a clear emphasis on tech and connectivity, albeit without an actual car to demonstrate any of that just yet.

Instead, the company confirmed its first car would be called the Avatar E11, with a silhouette and some grainy visual flashes of the new model shown off during the presentation.

The E11 was previewed in a design silhouette displayed behind executives in making the announcement and also made a brief appearance on the screen.

The official information released by Changan Automobile was light-on for details, not even mentioning an apparent tie-up with Huawei and the use of CATL batteries. But it did use lots of fancy phrases such as “black technologies” and “butterfly change”, suggesting Avatar (and parent Changan) is thinking big. We think…

Various Chinese media outlets are also reporting that the E11 will not just use Huawei tech and software – Huawei has previously been linked to vehicle development – and CATL batteries, but that the two respective giants will also be involved in the development of the vehicles.

The E11 will apparently be built on a new networked vehicle architecture known as CHN, where C denotes Changan, H stands for Huawei and N (somehow) denotes CATL.

Oddly, we can’t find any official mention from CATL or Huawei. Perhaps they’re waiting for an actual car, which will apparently arrive sometime in the next few months.

Changan’s official information refers to the E11 as Avatar’s first “high-end intelligent plug-in electric car”.

It says “the new brand will be equipped with the world’s leading, independent and controllable intelligent electric networked vehicle architecture”.

It seems Huawei may have a fair bit to do with the “intelligent” and “networked” parts of that statement, although, again, there’s no specific mention of Huawei in the official release.

Instead, the Changan statement simply said “Changan auto is willing to be more open and work with global partners to seize the opportunities brought by the new round of technological revolution and industrial revolution, to build a new ecosystem of new auto and paint a brighter future!”.

Oh, and just to confuse things, Changan also unveiled a car called the C385, which appears to have nothing to do with the Avatar E11, other than it’s built by the same company.

But that C385 could be part of a bigger picture to expand the Changan footprint.

Parent company Changan also wants to go global, with plans for export that we assume could also include the newly-created Avatar Technology brand.

Changan says that in 2030 it “will become a world-class brand, with sales reaching 4.5 million units and EVs accounting for 60 percent [of those sales]”.

It’s also planning for 30 percent of those sales to be made up of export markets.