After almost a decade of effort, Apple eventually abandoned its attempt to produce an electric car last year, canceling a project that won $ 10 billion.
But last year in China, the Xiaomi electronic manufacturer started its first electric car after just three years of growth and delivered 135,000 vehicles. Has promised to double this number in 2025.
Xiaomi’s ability to succeed where Apple could not show how well China has come to dominate the supply chain for electric vehicles. Chinese companies have conquered the construction of electric vehicles. By providing this infrastructure, Xiaomi was able to get the accessories quickly and cheap.
More Chinese electric vehicles – including Leapmotor, Li Auto and Seres Group – are beginning to convert profit after burning cash for years in their intense competition for the world’s largest automotive industry.
And Xiaomi is not the only Chinese electronic consumer consumer company who has branched into electric vehicles. The Huawei telecommunications giant, which the US government has targeted sanctions and legal actions for years, has been making autonomous driving software. Huawei has worked with multiple Chinese automakers, including Seres Group and state -owned companies Saic Motor, Baic and Chery.
Xiaomi has long been compared to Apple. He made bets that his opponents rushed to imitate, such as the sale of low cost, high -profile phones mainly online. Its chief executive, Lei Jun, and even dressed as Apple Steve Jobs co -founder, in jeans and a black shirt for Xiaomi’s first phone launch in 2011.
Xiaomi’s first electric car was named last March: the Su7, a four -door sedan with artificial intelligence features that can help with parking, play for passengers and the Xiaomi Home Appilyces program from the street. Mr Lei said he looks like a Porsche. But at $ 30,000, it’s a quarter of the price.
Xiaomi makes all kinds of electronics, from the electric empty robots to air conditioners, which are connected through its operating system and controlled to its application. The Su7 is, in a way, just another gadget. It can use data collected from other devices about a driver’s daily routine to determine the best time to charge the car’s batteries.
“Xiaomi has really begun to penetrate your home,” said Gary Ng, an economist with Natixis Corporate & Investment Banking. “Everything is connected together, and this is something that other companies could not do.”
While the SU7 has won Xiaomi only a small fraction of sales of China’s top sales manufacturers, it puts Xiaomi among Chinese companies involved in a significant blow to the long mandate of foreign automakers to buy China for premium cars. During the year since the SU7 was released, Porsche traditions to China declined by almost 30 %.
On Thursday night in Beijing, Xiaomi released a high-end version, the Su7 Ultra, along with a premium version of its latest smartphone. The company organized a fancy teaser for the car racing an original around the Nürburgring Racetrack, Germany, where Xiaomi said, set a record for the “fastest four -door sedan”.
Xiaomi also plans to release a sports vehicle, the YU7, this year, according to regulatory deposits in China.
Chinese electric vehicles have benefited from billions of dollars to government support, which has helped them acquire control of the supply chain to minerals in car batteries. This Early Edge has helped two Chinese companies, BYD and modern AMPEREX technology – known as Catl and added to the list of Pentagon’s Chinese military companies in January – to become the largest electric battery manufacturers in the world.
Xiaomi used this supply chain to its advantage. Its cars contain BYD and CATL batteries. He was able to quickly start production by taking over a factory from the Beijing Auto Group. Manufacturers in Beijing work around the clock in a second factory.
All of this capacity helps Chinese electric vehicles move from growth in production in much less time than traditional automakers in China, allowing them to quickly bring new models to the market and focus on the creation of software that can be constantly updated, said by Stephen W. Dyer.
Home competition has pushed many Chinese highways to flood the world car market with affordable electric cars. Last year, byd sold more than four million new cars worldwide.
It’s just a matter of time before Xiaomi cars are on the road outside China, said Cui Dongshu, Secretary General of China’s passenger cars.
Xiaomi’s popularity as a manufacturer of all kinds of electronic consumers gave him a deep knowledge of Chinese consumer preferences. On the first day the SU7s were delivered, buyers could go to the Xiaomi App Store and get accessories to overcome cars, such as analog dashboard watches and a series of natural switches attached to a touch panel.
“The brand’s power puts Xiaomi in front of many competitors,” said Tu Le, chief executive of Counseling Sino Auto Insights. “This is what they need to sell cars worldwide because it’s not just a consumer product. It’s an emotional product.”
