The luxury electric car market may be small, but it's lucrative enough to get another jolt — this time from a mysterious startup that says it wants to re-imagine how people interact with their autos.

The startup's name is Faraday Future, and it has been hunting for a place to build what it says will be a $1 billion manufacturing plant for a new line of cars. Four states are contenders and the company says to expect an announcement within weeks.

Headquartered in a low-profile office just south of Los Angeles, Faraday is holding a lot of details close. Though it won't confirm the source of its funds, documents filed in California point to a parent company run by a Chinese billionaire who styles himself after Apple's late Steve Jobs.

Based on the few other public clues, Faraday is following the path blazed by Tesla Motors, its would-be rival hundreds of miles away in Silicon Valley.