With Tesla founder’s help, Chinese automaker comes to Bay Area

Photo: David Mcnew, AFP / Getty Images An electric car is plugged into a charging station. While many U.S....

Another Chinese automaker aims to break into California’s growing electric vehicle industry, with a little help from one of Tesla’s founders.

Sokon Industry Group has opened its U.S. headquarters in Santa Clara, the company reported Tuesday. It has also established a research center in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Formerly known as Chongqing Sokon Auto Industry Group, the company last year created a U.S. subsidiary called SF Motors and announced that it had lined up Tesla co-founder and former CEO Martin Eberhard as a consultant.

“As we expand our operations and R&D efforts, we hope to partner with like-minded corporations and recruit the top automotive and tech talent to ensure attainable, clean mobility for future generations,” said John Zhang, CEO of SF Motors.

The Santa Clara office, which will focus on business operations and product planning, employs about 50 people and should have 150 by the year’s end, according to the company.

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California has seen a recent influx of electric vehicle companies either from China or backed by Chinese investors. The roster includes Faraday Future, LeEco, Lucid Motors and NextEV.

None of those companies, however, has succeeded so far in bringing an electric car to market.

And questions of financial health have swirled for months around two of them — Faraday and LeEco — backed by the same billionaire: Jia Yueting. Faraday, which is trying to build its first factory near Las Vegas, recently backed out of discussions with Vallejo officials about developing a second factory on Mare Island.

Still, for Chinese automakers, California presents an attractive electric vehicle market, said Rebecca Lindland, executive analyst at the Kelley Blue Book auto information service.

The companies are under pressure from their own government to develop electric cars as a way to curb China’s notorious air pollution. And while many U.S. consumers have shown little interest in electric vehicles, Californians have been an exception.

By the end of last year, the state had about 270,000 electric cars and plug-in hybrids on its roads — roughly half of all such cars in the United States. A California regulation also forces automakers to ensure that a portion of all vehicles they sell in the state produce zero tailpipe emissions.

The rule, known as the zero emission vehicle mandate, should in time create a large market for electric vehicles in the state, Lindland said. That can be alluring for Chinese automakers looking for overseas markets.

“Keep in mind they are probably making these vehicles for other markets as well — particularly China, the biggest market of all,” Lindland said. “You can make the numbers work better if you can tell an investor, ‘I’m not just going to sell in China, I’m going to sell in California, too.’”

David R. Baker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dbaker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DavidBakerSF