By LIU Zeran

Founded in 2014 in Beijing by SHEN Haiyin, a former employee of 360 and Kingsoft, Singulato was in the right place at the start of China's EV explosion. Aimed to be the next Tesla, a pretty commonplace aspiration at the time and ever since.

Initially, the company enjoyed immense popularity, from investors if not from car buyers. Singulato somehow managed to raise a staggering 17 billion yuan (US$2.3 billion) through multiple financing rounds.

Shen set out to achieve automatic driving on highways by 2017 and in cities by 2018 and started to build factories. Singulato perhaps had too much cash. Aggressive goals and poor decision-making quickly burned up the billions.

None of the three planned factories have actually made cars. Despite previewing its debut model, the iS6, in April 2017, and despite 17 billion yuan to play with, Singulato never made a marketable vehicle.

In desperation, Singulato attempted to switch to e-bikes with the Blue Shark, the only thing the company ever made that went on sale.

Singulato is not the lone failure within the EV industry. Hengchi, Aiways and WM Motor are in obvious trouble.

The primary reasons behind these companies' collapses are bubbly valuations, mismanagement, and an increasingly saturated market. Despite this, a continuous influx of new players feeds into the EV domain every day.