Xiaomi will deliver 60,000 vehicles in 2024 and lose money in the first two years, a financial research firm CreditSights announced. Meanwhile, local media reported that the Xiaomi Beijing factory’s production capacity will be 4,000 – 5,000 units in April and gradually ramp up to 6,000 units by the end of the year.

This results in a possible 53,000 mass-produced vehicles in 2024, including 5,000 cars finished before the March 28 launch. Those 5k cars are called Founders Edition (FE) and were assembled in previous months – the company started deliveries of them on April 3. FEs are promoted to Xiaomi’s hardcore fans with various perks and benefits.

Another Chinese media outlet, MyDrivers, reported today that Xiaomi currently produces 300 cars daily, which is insufficient to satisfy the demand. The waiting times for new orders increased to up to eight months as of today.

The Xiaomi SU7 is an electric sedan with a starting range of 700 km. It was launched on March 28 in China for 215,900 yuan (29,900 USD). The company received 50,000 orders in the first 27 minutes after the launch and 100,000 orders as of Wednesday.

Customers who place orders must deposit 5,000 yuan (700 USD), which becomes non-refundable in seven days. If they choose to lock in the configuration, the deposit is immediately non-refundable. The company reportedly received 40,000 lock-in orders as of today.

Lei Jun admitted that the company is losing money on its entry-level variant SU7 RWD standard. The deliveries of the SU7 Standard and Max AWD variants will begin at the end of April. The Pro will start deliveries later in May with an 830 km CLTC range. The current deliveries, which began on Wednesday, April 3, are only Founder Edition, about 5,000 cars Xiaomi assembled before the official launch.

Xiaomi also asked its suppliers to increase their production capacity to match the factory’s monthly output of 10,000 units. Xiaomi SU7 is contract manufactured by state-owned BAIC in the Beijing plant. On paper, the factory’s capacity is 150,000 units/year. Construction of the second phase of the factory will begin in 2025. After the second phase is finished, the plant’s output will reach 300,000 units/year.

Editor’s comment

Lots of analysts report that ramping up production will be critical for Xiaomi. Although increasing plant output to a reasonable level is important, I don’t see it as a major issue. Xiaomi has been famous from its early days for selling huge amounts of smartphones in no time. For example, Xiaomi Mi2s, its second smartphone, sold 200,000 units in a few seconds, leaving many customers to wait for another batch. Lei Jun is a master of hunger marketing, and he knows very well how to use the limited production capacity and overwhelming interest in its favor.

What matters more is the SU7 perception of safety. Xiaomi always sends any new gadget to its army of lifestyle influencers for reviews and publicity. With SU7, it wasn’t different, and we already saw lots of pictures and videos of wild TikTokers (Douyin) drifting in the streets, sometimes not very successfully.

Xiaomi’s Product manager even publicly warned that the Xiaomi SU7 is a fast car and that safety comes first. “SU7 is a car with 2 seconds of acceleration. Not everyone is used to such a performance. Please pay attention to driving safety and be sure to pay attention to traffic laws,” Thomas Wang Guo appealed to Xiaomi fans.

Xiaomi SU7 Max is all-wheel drive with 663 horsepower and 838 Nm peak torque. It weighs about 2.5 tons and is almost 5 meters long.