Alibaba and SAIC partner on internet car

It seems a long shot to replace smartphones with cars. But Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is heading in that direction. It unveiled on Wednesday a new internet-enabled vehicle equipped with the e-commerce giant's YunOS operating system.

The car, which is dubbed the first internet car to go into mass production, is part of a partnership that Alibaba and SAIC Motor Corp, one of China's major car manufacturers, inked about two years ago.

Jack Ma, executive chairman of Alibaba, described the vehicle as a milestone product that marks the beginning of the so-called internet of everything - an era in which everything is connected to everything else via the internet.