It is said that Didi will acquire the shares of Guoji Zhijun

Gasgoo (Reuters) - Didi is in talks with Sinomach to acquirea third of the stake in Sinomach 'selectric vehicle business, Sinomach, two people familiar with the matter said.

Didi plans to buy a stake in Guoji Zhijun Auto from minority shareholders and inject fresh capital into the company, one of the people said.Another source said the stake acquisition would cost Didi more than 1 billion yuan ($150 million).

The D1 electric car jointly built by Didi and BYD, picture source: Didi Chuxing

Negotiations for the stake acquisition are at an advanced stage, people familiar with the matter said.The two sides will finalize the deal by the end of this month, one of the people said.If the transaction is successfully completed, Didi will become the second largest shareholder of SINOMACH Zhijun, second only to SINOMACH.According to the company's information, SINOMACH currently holds 40% of the shares of SINOMACH Zhijun.At noon today, SINOMACH hit the daily limit and closed at 8.68 yuan.

Didi has been quietly advancing a car-making project code-named "Da Vinci," one of the people said.The project employs around 2,000 people and hopes to form a partnership with an automaker with qualifications for electric vehicle production.

In March of this year, it was reported that Didi's car-building plan codenamed "Da Vinci" may be announced in June this year. In the early stage,two models will be built for the passenger car andonline car-hailing markets. The model in the market will be named C1, which is positioned as a compact pure electric sedan with a price of 150,000 yuan; the model for online car-hailing will be D1 Light, a simplified version of D1, which will continue to be produced by BYD and will be invested in the future. The Flower Piggy taxi platform is used.

At that time, it was reported that Didi intends to acquirethe new energy vehiclemanufacturer Guoji Zhijun in order to obtain the qualification to build a car as soon as possible.In response, Guoji Zhijun responded on the interactive platform that the company is in contact with many companies in the industry to seek suitable strategic investors.