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"It
brings Aston Martin's electric car project forward," Aston
Martin Chief Executive Andy Palmer said at a news conference in
Frankfurt.
The partners plan to develop an electric car based on Aston
Martin's Rapide S model. Financial terms of the transaction were
not disclosed.
Lei Ding, co-founder of LeEco's auto division, who previously
held senior positions at joint ventures of Volkswagen <VOWG_p.DE>
and General Motors <GM.N> in China, said: "The joint venture is
a partnership platform. We can develop future electric vehicles
for both parties."
Separately, the new joint venture plans to collaborate with
Faraday Future, the start-up electric car firm backed by Chinese
billionaire Jia Yueting, the companies said.
China's government is promoting electric vehicles to cut the
smog that frequently envelops cities, which officials say has
helped sales quadruple last year and has turned it into the
world's biggest market.
An electric car joint venture of Taiwan's Hon Hai, China's
Tencent and China Harmony Auto Holding said this month it
was hiring former BMW executive Carsten Breitfeld to lead
it.
Harmony Futeng, launched last March, is one of several Chinese
tech companies trying to develop "smart" and electric vehicles.
These include Alibaba, Baidu and Leshi Internet
Information and Technology Corp Beijing, recently rebranded as
LeEco.
(Reporting by Edward Taylor; Writing by Ludwig Burger and
Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Maria Sheahan)
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