The company funding Faraday Future just unveiled its own electric car

LeEco — the Chinese holding company known as LeTV until just a few months ago — just introduced its first electric car ahead of the Beijing auto show. Called LeSEE, the concept sedan is designed to be fully autonomous with a fold-away steering wheel. LeEco has sometimes been billed “the Netflix of China,” and has said that it intends to make in-car entertainment (which is currently a big topic in the self-driving world) a key part of its foray into transportation.

Where the plot thickens is that LeEco is also bankrolling Faraday Future, the California-based EV startup that has poached hundreds of auto industry staff in recent years and is currently building a $1 billion factory in Nevada. The relationship between LeSEE and Faraday’s vehicles is unclear, though it certainly stands to reason that both companies could benefit from some level of engineering cooperation. LeEco is also working with Aston Martin on its first electric car, the RapidE, and has built a new infotainment system for the company.

There’s no launch date for the LeSEE, but China has been making major inroads in autonomous driving research lately — most recently with a Tencent-backed car maker that has poached staff from BMW.