chinese ev startups nio xpeng inc li auto and wm motor have raised more than 8 billion between them this year and now rival aiways is planning to go publicbeijing chinas electric vehicle startups are on the charge again thanks to teslathe countrys growing fascination with the us pioneers sleek designs and cuttingedge technology is giving a string of secondwave homegrown tesla wannabes the traction to raise more funding expand production and boost saleschinese ev startups nio xpeng inc li auto and wm motor have raised more than 8 billion between them this year and now rival aiways is planning to go public its cofounder and president fu qiang told reuters advt speaking ahead of the beijing auto show which starts on saturday fu said the relative success of us initial public offerings ipo by xpeng and li auto had helped fuel the companys ambitions to listsince it was founded in 2017 in shanghai aiways has raised no more than 10 billion yuan and it will need to secure more funding from some private equity funds and other investors said fu the former head of volvo cars china who has also been an executive at mercedesbenz skoda and fawvolkswagenipo is also in our plans and were planning to push ahead with it fu said adding that aiways would most likely be listed within china declining to elaborate furtherchina has been the worlds fastestgrowing ev market for years helped by generous state purchase subsidies but the sales boom started to sputter last year as beijing began cutting back financial support and watering down other proev policiessome prominent chinese ev startups such as byton and singulato have struggled and nios future looked in doubt last year but a surge in teslas market value and its sales in china suggest the countrys ev dream is far from overas tesla stock goes so goes the fate for electric vehicle startups said china auto expert mike dunne funds are flowing like a river in spring again tesla could end up pulling everyone into the future sooner than expected advt just out of the gateteslas sales in china in the first eight months of 2020 have nearly tripled from a year ago to 73658 cars according to consulting firm lmc automotive despite the disruption caused by the covid19 pandemicsome chinese auto executives say cars made by the company from palo alto california are achieving the status of apples first iphones in china and with so many potential technological advances still to come that gives them hopefu believes the revived interest in evs in china is partly because ev owners are fascinated by intelligent driving functions as well as the interactive socalled connected services that many newer models are starting to come withtodays smart connected cars arent that smart were just out of the gate and are in a stage that could be described as iphone 1 or the original iphone aiways president fu said as that gets developed stepbystep in the near future we