"Evergrande's choice of production base location has nothing to do with the purchase of residential land," said the company spokesperson. "For the residential land in Nantong, we obtained the land through open bidding and market price in strict accordance with the relevant regulations."

Authorities in Nantong didn't respond to questions.

The company has struck similar deals to produce EVs or EV parts with the cities of Huzhou, Lu'an, Nanning, Xiangyin and Zhengzhou -- cities that range in size from roughly 1 million to 10 million people -- according to local media reports and official announcements.

The company has also announced big plans for larger cities that are already major car-production centers. In June 2019, Mr. Xu attended a ceremony in Guangzhou at which he committed to investing $24.7 billion in a local EV base. Four days later, he was in the northeastern city of Shenyang signing an $18.6 billion EV production deal.

Evergrande's actual spending has so far been a fraction of the sums promised by Mr. Xu. It has invested $7.3 billion in its EV project to date, Liu Yongzhuo, vice chairman of Evergrande Auto, said at the auto show in Shanghai in April.

In Shanghai, Mr. Xu's promises are taking shape: Evergrande has built at least the shell of an EV plant in the city's southwestern suburbs -- externally it is complete, though its inner workings aren't known. And it boasts a research-and-development center nearby. This month the company said in a filing that it had been granted 1,355 patents relating to vehicle development.

Evergrande aims to build 1 million EVs annually by as early as 2023, the company says. Tesla, by comparison, made roughly half a million EVs last year.

--Bingyan Wang and Raffaele Huang contributed to this article.

Write to Trefor Moss at Trefor.Moss@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

05-19-21 1016ET