Alibaba’s first smart car is here and is up for pre-bookings

Alibaba and Cars! Sounds strange? But true nonetheless. Alibaba is making inroads into the automobile space and has unveiled its first “internet car” in collaboration with one of China’s largest, state-owned carmakers, SAIC Motor Corp.

The RX5, priced around RMB 148,800 (or $22,300) will be powered by an operating system specially built for the automotive industry by the Alibaba’sYunOS division. The car has been developed and tested over the course of the past two years and company will start delivery it from August.

At the launch event, Dr. Wang Jian, chairman of Alibaba’s Technology Steering Committee, said, “What we are creating is not ‘internet in the car’, but a ‘car on the internet’. This is a significant milestone in the automobile industry. Smart operating systems become the second engine of cars, while data is the new fuel.”

Alibaba’s car is smart but without self-drive technology. Alibaba raised a few examples of what that could mean in practical terms. It ranges from personalized greetings, music and preferred destinations based on settings that can be configured from a smartphone or wearable to the ability to use Alibaba’sAlipay payments service to pay for parking spaces, fill up with gas or buy a coffee. It’s logical that Alibaba’s own services are a core part of possibility functionality, but the company said it wants to open YunOS to third parties, too.

On the entertainment side of things, the RX5 includes three LED screens and space for up to four detachable 360-degree cameras to record video and take photos and a smart rear view mirror. As you might expect, there’s support for voice controls while an onboard “intelligent” mapping system, the companies claim, will work without GPS or Wifi.

“Going forward, cars will become an important platform for internet services and smart hardware innovation. We will be embracing the world where everything is closely connected,” Wang added.

Alibaba is not the only Chinese internet firm to get into cars. LeEco, formerly LeTv, is backing ambitious U.S. project Faraday Future and building a car of its own, while Baidu is one the front runners testing self-driving vehicles in both China and the US.