The Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi has emerged as a new rival to the US company Tesla, the pioneer of electric cars in the world. Today Thursday (March 28) Xiaomi launched its first electric vehicle (EV). The company has already started taking orders for the car.
Chinese mobile company Xiaomi has launched an electric car
Xiaomi’s first electric car model is the Speed Ultra 7 (SU-7). Its price will be below 500,000 yuan ($70,000) in Chinese currency. Xiaomi is comparing the SU-7 car with the luxury Taycan and Panamera sports car models of German company Porsche.
The firm hopes that the SU-7, the operating system associated with Xiaomi’s popular mobile phones, laptops and other devices, will also be present in cars, adding to its appeal to consumers. The driver of the car can easily connect to Xiaomi’s mobile apps.
Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun said the Speed Ultra7 car uses ‘super electric motor’ technology that will accelerate even faster than Tesla’s car. The car will run from 668 to 800 km on a single charge.
Jun said, “We hope to become one of the top five car manufacturers in the world in the next few years.”
According to data from research firm Counterpoint, Xiaomi is the third-largest smartphone vendor globally, with a share of around 12 percent of the global market.
Xiaomi’s entry into the electric car market comes at a time when car sales have slowed slightly due to high inflation across the globe. Moreover, Xiaomi will have to engage in a price war with rivals such as Elon Musk’s Tesla, one of the world’s richest people, and BYD, another Chinese EV maker.
Elon Musk’s Tesla has recently been forced to cut the price of its EVs in the Chinese market by thousands of dollars. Because local rivals like BYD, the world’s top-selling EV maker, have slashed prices.
Xiaomi has announced that it will invest $10 billion in the electric car business over the next 10 years. Xiaomi manufactures cars at a plant owned by state-owned carmaker BAIC in Beijing, the plant is capable of producing 200,000 cars a year.
Bill Russo, head of Shanghai-based consulting firm Automobility, said that Xiaomi has come this far in a short time is an achievement, but the ultimate achievement will be shown when Xiaomi creates a smart consumer market as an EV brand.
However, Abhishek Murali, CEO of research firm Restud Energy, feels that the Chinese EV market is very mature and a very stable market for EV manufacturers.