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There's nothing to say they won't. The article says they're operating out of an old Nissan research facility right now, not that they've bought a factory in Ca

There's nothing to say they won't. The article says they're operating out of an old Nissan research facility right now, not that they've bought a factory in California. Everybody else doing autonomous and electric vehicle research also seems to be operating out of california right now as well. It's where the people who know that stuff are, so if a Chinese company wants to build an electric car, it makes sense that they'd set up shop in California too. When it comes time to move to manufacturing, they can do that anywhere.

MagnumOpus 11y ago
> Everybody else doing autonomous and electric vehicle research also seems to be operating out of california right now as well That is a particulary narrow set of blinders. Even in the US it is not true - MCity and U-M's research in Michigan is a good counter example. And when you look over the pond, there's a lot more going on in Stuttgart and Munich than in the Valley (with less breathless hype but more actual progress). Of course for Chinese car builders it is easier to poach US engineers, research and know-how to build their own industry - less problems with the language than in Germany, less distrust given that Californian research is half run by Chinese grad students anyway.