Volvo — now a Chinese company — takes on Tesla – China’s latest business and technology news

The Wall Street Journal reports (paywall) that Volvo, the Swedish car company owned by China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, “unveiled its first high-performance electric-car model in Shanghai” on October 17.

• The car will come to market in 2019, under the stand-alone marque Polestar, which intends to compete head-on with Tesla.
• Polestars will be manufactured in Chengdu in southwestern Sichuan Province, where Volvo already has a plant.
• China is firmly on track to become the world’s electric vehicle (EV) powerhouse, with hundreds of startups launching new cars and technologies, and the government subsidizing and regulating the industry into a boom.
• As Caixin notes (paywall) in a report on the Polestar launch, the government has demanded that EVs comprise 12 percent of all carmakers’ total output in 2019. Volvo itself pledged in June this year to produce only electric or hybrid vehicles by 2019.

More reading on EVs on The China Project:

• Another push for electric cars in China from the visible hand
• Electric vehicles now 1.2 percent of car market in China
• Geely: The astonishing rise of a small Chinese car company
• A tycoon returns to shake up the electric vehicle market 
• China electrifies global auto markets
• Foreign automakers not named GM gear up for EV production in China
• China softens new energy vehicle requirements through 2020

• Dalian Wanda
  Wanda’s man in Hollywood steps down / WSJ (paywall)
  “Dalian Wanda Group’s front man in Hollywood has resigned.” The departing executive is 59-year-old Jack Gao 高群耀, who “oversaw Wanda’s international investments as a senior vice president,” and “served as interim chief executive of Hollywood production company Legendary Entertainment.”
• Currency
  China’s central bank touts digital fiat currency / Caixin (paywall)
  “China, as one of the most cashless economies, has a head start in creating its own institutionally backed digital legal tender,” according to the director of the Digital Currency Research Institute at the People’s Bank of China.
• Internet companies and insurance
  Tencent creates independent online insurance unit / TechNode
• Aviation
  Airbus tie-up with Bombardier is test for China’s ambitions / Bloomberg
• Unmanned convenience stores
  JD renews offline effort with new unmanned convenience stores / TechNode
• On-demand services
  New app provides experts on demand for China journalists / Sixth Tone