Alibaba Openly Challenges Apple And Google For $4.2B Market, Introduces $22K Smart Car

While the rest of the world is looking to companies like Google, BMW, Tesla, and Apple to provide the next generation of smart cars, Alibaba is taking over the Chinese market. Since China is the biggest car market in the world, it’s only natural that companies like Apple would want to penetrate the country to sell services like the Apple CarPlay system. This isn’t likely to be easy since Jack Ma only wants Alibaba providing his countrymen with the smart features they need.

Tech Crunch reports that Alibaba has unveiled its first smart car offering, the RX5 to the open market. The car was developed in partnership with a major, state-owned car-making firm, SAIC. The car is now available for pre-order, and it costs $22,300.

For those who are expecting features like auto-pilot or smart lane shifting, they will not find them in the RX5. Instead, they will find a vehicle that has many internet connective features that essentially makes the car an internet hub. This is essentially what Alibaba was intending, according to its technology steering committee chairman, Dr. Wang Jian.

“What we are creating is not ‘internet in the car’, but a ‘car on the internet’. This is a significant milestone in the automobile industry,” Dr. Jian explained. “Smart operating systems become the second engine of cars, while data is the new fuel.”

According to the research done by IHS Automotive, this segment of the car industry will reach $4.2 billion by 2021, Bloomberg reports. With China being a significant chunk of that industry, Alibaba is poised to become a powerhouse that Apple will have difficulty competing against in its own market.

Naturally, this is what Alibaba has been building towards all along, which started back in 2014 when it acquired AutoNavi Holdings Ltd. for $1.5 billion. AutoNavi is the most popular mapping service in China, which is why Ma chose to acquire it in the first place.