Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has officially launched it's first ever connected car. The project was carried out in collaboration with Chinese automaker SAIC. The development of the connected car took two years to complete and cost $160 million.

The sports utility vehicle, dubbed the RX5, is now available for pre-order via Alibaba's digital store Tmall. It currently has a price tag of 148,800 yuan (roughly $22,000). Alibaba said that the first batch of cars would be shipped in August, according to Tech Node.

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The RX5 is powered by Alibaba's YunOS operating system. The same operating system has been rolled out to other connected devices like tablets and smartphones.

With the release of the RX 5, Alibaba is joining a handful of Chinese enterprises that have thrown their hats into the quest for connected cars. While the connected car market is still a relatively small and fledgling one, many market analysts agree that with the current explosion of Internet in the region it should not take long before the customers take notice of this market.

Chinese tech giant Tencent released a vehicle operating system in September 2015. On the other hand, LeEco also released its car operating system back in January 2015. Just like the two previously mentioned operating systems, Alibaba is hoping to entice third-party developers to develop its platform.

In a statement acquired by Bloomberg, Alibaba chief executive officer Jack Ma said, "We believe in the future that 80 percent of the car's functionality won't be related to transportation. This car will become a kind of robot you communicate with on a daily basis."

TagsAlibaba, saic, Connected Cars, cars, Tmall, Alibaba SAIC, Alibaba connected cars, Alibaba cars, RX5, Alibaba RX5