The sales pitch for the US listing of Nio has a familiar ring. The electric vehicles business is the brainchild of an ecommerce entrepreneur with soaring global ambitions. William Bin Li looks as if he could become a handy substitute for Elon Musk, if the latter takes Tesla private.

Unfortunately, Musk wannabes are as common in China as Elvis impersonators in Las Vegas. The country boasts several hundred electric car start-ups. Nio, whose Chinese name means “blue sky coming” stands out because it filed for an initial public offering this week. Mr Li has yet to manifest such Muskesque marks of greatness as blasting sports cars into space or lobbing adolescent insults at critics.

In fairness, Nio has better prospects than most counterparts for at least three reasons. First, its backers include tech group Tencent, whose stamp of approval may be a proxy for the official kind. Second, it is already reckoned to have delivered a few hundred of its premium SUVs. Third, it has a talent for marketing, as a record-beating lap of Germany’s Nürburgring racetrack by a Nio roadster showed.