Xiaomi SU7 electric sedan was officially unveiled on Thursday with a 495 kW (663 hp) motor and 101 kWh CATL Qilin battery good for an 800 km range. The car from a consumer electronics giant reached the first Xiaomi store less than 24 hours after the press conference. The mass production start is set for the first half of 2024, and deliveries will start in a few months, Lei Jun, the company’s CEO, said.
Xiaomi SU7 showcase cars were first spotted in the company’s Headquarters Store in Xiaomi Science and Technology Park in Shangdi (Haidian District) in Beijing. Others will follow, and in the future, all Xiaomi flagship stores around China will have to showcase on display, the company said.
The salesperson of the Xiaomi store in Xujiahui, Shanghai, told Autohome that the first display cars will arrive in the first quarter of 2024. The Mi Home store staff member in Beijing said that many of their stores are too small and located on the first floor of the shopping mall, thus making it challenging to display cars. According to him, Xiaomi will need to renovate many of its stores so it can accompany a new product.
The salesperson from the Mi Home store in Foshan (a city near Guangzhou in Southern China) told Autohome that executives from Xiaomi HQ are visiting the existing stores and selecting locations where cars could be displayed.
SU7 offers three colors: Aqua Blue, Mineral Gray, and Verdant Green. Xiaomi is all about the ecosystem, so the company also launched smartphones, watches, and other accessories in the same colors as the cars.
Moreover, the company developed a HyperOS system that will replace the existing MIUI OS and serve as a unified operation system for all Xiaomi devices, from cars and Mi Home gadgets to smartphones. Xiaomi promises excellent connectivity and digital experience, so your smartphone can communicate well with the vehicle, and you can, for example, mirror it on the interior screen or use your Mi Pad as the in-car screen for passengers. SU7 will also communicate well with Apple products, Lei Jun affirms.
Editor’s comment
In China, it is nothing unusual to sell cars in shopping malls; almost all new EV startups do it. Some need to create brand new showrooms and stores, such as BYD, Nio, and Xpeng, and some can use their existing infrastructure, like Xiaomi or Huawei, which already sells its Aito vehicles in Huawei Flagship stores.
The price of the new EV hasn’t been announced yet, but Lei Jun already had to rein Xiaomi fans’ passions about the pricing, saying the EV will be more expensive than they expected. CarNewsChina expects the EV to start at under 300,000 yuan.
Xiaomi is known for offering high-end products for low prices, which is how it entered the smartphone business in 2010. Their first smartphones, M1 and Mi2S, were comparable with high-end models from Samsung at that time. Still, Xiaomi sold them directly to customers online for half the price, leading to hundreds of thousands of units sold in a few seconds, creating lots of marketing buzz.
However, Xiaomi wasn’t manufacturing the phones independently but was using third-party manufacturing partners such as Wingtech or Inventec. Xiaomi SU7 EV uses the same system, as it will be assembled in the factory owned by BAIC Off-road Vehicle Co., a division of state-owned Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co. Ltd (BAIC).
Excellent styling it’s definitely going to turn heads with the colours expected
Who r u
The acceleration on this thing looks pretty nutty!
According to the xiaomiev site:
0-100kph in 2.78s.
510km worth of charging in 15 minutes.
800km claimed range.
If the car really goes for 300k rmb, I’d be sorely tempted to add a car to my motorcyle endorsement…
A lot of the mid-range EVs give my 500cc ADV a run for its money at the stoplight.
Though a motorbike is still unbeatable when it comes to navigating through Chinese congestion.
I hope they make sure to remind local drivers how much power this thing has, though, I can imagine the uninitiated putting their foot down and entering the afterlife in under 3 seconds.