LeEco reveals a car, but cannot make it drive

Chinese company, LeEco, on Wednesday made an unfortunate entry into the race to develop self-driving electric cars when its model car might not make it down the runway at a gala event here.

China’s Le Holdings Co Ltd, likewise referred as LeEco, planned to reveal its self-driving car prototype as part of a splashy U.S. launch for a range of technology services and products, including phones, TVs and entertainment production.

Executives from Qualcomm and Lionsgate signed up with LeEco founder, Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting, to underscore the value of the United States industry to one of China’s greatest innovation companies.

The choice of the San Francisco venue, in the backyard of high-end electric vehicle maker Tesla and Alphabet Inc’s Google self-driving automobile team, underscored the globalization of the race to establish connected, electric and ultimately self-driving automobiles.

Jia informed the audience his LeSee model vehicle couldn’t drive down the show’s runway as planned.

“It shouldn’t be me going out here, we didn’t have any other choice,” Jia informed the audience, speaking through a translator. “What we desired was me in the car, and the autonomous car drives me out.”

The misfire was triggered by a delay getting the LeSee vehicle prototype from London – where it is being used in the movie “Transformers 5” – to San Francisco, company officials stated.

The “LeSee” prototype – first revealed in April in Beijing – was made available for seeing after the show.

LeEco executives stated they visualize the automobile as part of a shared ownership system, and stated it could take advantage of a tactical collaboration with Los Angeles-based Faraday Future, an electrical vehicle start-up also managed by Jia. No details were provided of that alliance.

Faraday will reveal its very first production vehicle in Las Vegas in January at the Customer Electronics Show, Jia stated.

LeEco’s concentration on the interconnectivity of screens puts the company directly in the course of Apple and other U.S. innovation giants attempting to bridge the gap between hardware like phones or cars and the software that links them to each other.

LeEco plans to release its phone and television products on November 2.