(Yicai Global) Feb. 26 -- Ride-hailing operator T3, which was formed almost two years ago by China’s three biggest carmakers and tech giants Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings, plans to expand into a further 27 Chinese cities this year, including Beijing and Shenzhen, according to a media report.

“Our goal is to capture more than a 20 percent market share in all the cities we operate in,” The Paper quoted Chief Executive Cui Dayong as saying when he announced T3’s business expansion plans yesterday.

The Nanjing-headquartered startup operates in 21 cities, including Shanghai, which it entered last December. January orders put it second in the sector behind Didi Chuxing, per data from China’s ride-hailing regulatory information sharing platform.

T3 also plans to introduce a customized new energy vehicle, now being produced by FAW Group, one of its backers, for service this April, Cui said. It costs about 20 percent less than fossil fuel-powered cars. A third of T3’s new vehicles this year will be this customized model, he added.

Major state-owned carmakers FAW, Dongfeng Motor Group, and Chang’an Automobile, as well as other investors such as Alibaba and Tencent, provided CNY9.76 billion (USD1.5 billion) to launch T3 in April 2019.

The firm operated more than 40,000 vehicles and had completed 150 million trips by the end of last year, with a total of over 18 million registered users and peak daily orders exceeding 1 million, according to company data.

Editor: Peter Thomas