The investor frenzy over China's new energy vehicle industry is far from over, and Evergrande Auto is a good example.

The Hong Kong-listed car business of Evergrande Group, China's largest real estate developer, has seen zero vehicle deliveries so far, but its shares rose 10.75 percent yesterday, the biggest gain in a month. It was also its fourth one-day share price gain of more than 10 percent this year.

On Wednesday, its shares retreated 5% to HK$56.25 ($7.2), corresponding to a market cap of HK$502.1 billion. So far this year, the company's shares have gained a cumulative 86 percent.

By comparison, BYD's latest market cap is HK$545 billion and Nio's latest market cap is US$68.5 billion (HK$532 billion).

This means that Evergrande Auto, which has yet to achieve mass production of vehicles, has become the third-largest listed car company in China after BYD and Nio.

Evergrande Auto's share price jumped yesterday because the company announced on March 15 that it has joined hands with Tencent to set up a joint venture to develop a world-leading in-car intelligent operating system with independent intellectual property rights.

Evergrande Auto will hold a 60 percent stake in the joint venture, while Phoenix Auto Intelligence, a subsidiary of Tencent, will hold a 40 percent stake.

Evergrande Auto, Tencent set up JV to develop operating systems for cars

The two parties will play their respective advantages in new energy vehicle R&D and manufacturing, artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, travel ecology and other fields to jointly build the world's leading smart car ecosystem.

In fact, this is not the first time Evergrande Auto and Tencent join hands.

Evergrande Auto had raised HK$4 billion through a placement of new shares on September 15, 2020, when strategic investors included top investment funds such as Yunfeng Fund and Sequoia Capital, as well as Internet giants such as Drip and Tencent.

Evergrande Auto has built up a more complete industrial chain and production base through mergers and acquisitions, and the latest cooperation with Tencent is expected to further improve its industrial layout.

In August last year, Evergrande Auto released six products at one time, covering all levels from A-grade to D-grade, spanning segments such as coupe, sedan, SUV, MPV, and crossover. This is unprecedented in the auto industry.

Evergrande Auto is ambitious and has previously stated that it wants to become "the world's largest and strongest new-energy vehicle group" within 3-5 years.

Since 2018, Evergrande Auto has been improving its industrial chain and production base through a planned investment of up to 300 billion yuan.

Evergrande Auto's mass production plan is gradually advancing. In November last year, Evergrande Auto's Shanghai and Guangzhou production bases fully started trial production and commissioning.

In December, Evergrande Auto announced the interior of its first model, Everch 1, which will be launched this year.

On February 3 this year, the Evergrande Auto winter test was officially launched at the CAC Yakeshi test base. The winter calibration test is a key point before the new car is launched.

Evergrande's car-making arm launches 3 new models, expanding its model lineup to 9