Tencent-Backed Company Aims to Launch Smart-Electric Cars Before 2020

BEIJING--An auto startup backed by internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. TCEHY 0.52 % plans to start selling premium electric cars globally by 2020, joining other Chinese car makers in taking aim at an increasingly crowded luxury market. Four month-old Future Mobility Corp. seeks eventually to sell several hundred thousand fully electric, highly automated, China-built vehicles a year. The company is also backed by Chinese luxury-car dealer Harmony New Energy Auto and Foxconn Technology Group, 2354 1.89 % which assembles iPhones for Apple Inc. AAPL 0.31 % Apple has been working on its own autonomous electric car. Deep-pocketed tech companies have backed a wave of new auto companies in China, where a drive to cut fuel consumption and pioneer the auto industry of the future has encouraged startups. Analysts, citing increasing competition and uncertainty over a subsidy-fueled boom in electric vehicles, question how such ambitions can be turned into reality.