EV start- up buys plant in Indiana

SAN FRANCISCO — SF Motors, a Chinese- owned electric car start- up in Silicon Valley, just bought a U. S. manufacturing plant. It’s an old AM General factory in Indiana that once built Humvees.

SF Motors is the latest start- up looking to enter the high- end electric car market with technology- loaded luxury vehicles that feature autonomous driving capabilities. Right now, the market barely exists. The only company that’s selling such cars is Tesla, with its Models S and X. But California start- ups such as Lucid Motors of Menlo Park and Faraday Future of Gardena are planning to introduce their own versions over the next several years. So too are traditional automakers such as Jaguar, Porsche and Audi.

SF Motors, headquartered in Santa Clara, is owned by Sokon Industry Group of Chongqing, China. The new company is perhaps most famous for its chief innovation officer and chief scientist, Martin Eberhard, who cofounded Tesla before he was ousted in 2008. Last month, SF Motors bought Eberhard’s battery and electric drivetrain start- up, InEVit. Eberhard joined SF Motors as a strategic advisor months after its January 2016 founding.

The now- idle AM General plant in Mishawaka, Ind., has built a wide variety of heavy- duty vehicles, including the Humvee. SF Motors said reopening the plant would create 430 manufacturing jobs.

SF Motors also plans to build cars in Beijing, with research and development locations in China, Germany, Japan and Ann Arbor, Mich. Few details are available about the vehicles the company plans to build, not even sketches or pictures of concept cars.