Billionaire Lei Jun Aims To Beat Tesla and Porsche With Xiaomi’s First EV

On Thursday, the billionaire co-founder of Xiaomi, Lei Jun, unveiled an extensive plan to enter China’s electric automotive market and compete with car giants such as Tesla and Porsche with a model they claim to have spent 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) developing, according to CNBC.

Speaking to a packed crowd at the China National Convention Centre in Beijing, Lei Jun said, “After three years of making cars, I realized how hard this venture is.” He added, “But after 15 to 20 years of hard work, we aim to build Xiaomi into one of the world’s top five electric vehicle companies,” reports Forbes.

After announcing his bold goals to become a global industry player in the autonomous vehicle industry, Lei highlighted that he brought on a design team who had previously worked at BMW and Mercedes-Benz to work on the SU7.

The model will go on the market in 2024 after over three years of refining it, but the price has not yet been finalized, according to a post by Lei on X (previously known as Twitter). Within this time, electric vehicles have become very popular in China, and it is a competitive space.

Xiaomi, a Chinese consumer electronics company, is known for its smartphone range and home appliances, and in the past, it wanted to create a “‘Human x Car x Home’ smart ecosystem.” It has made this vision a reality with the SU7, which is integrated with the company’s smartphones and internet-connected home appliances, as revealed by Lei on Thursday. He highlighted that Xiaomi has been on a mission to “ensure data privacy among the devices and create a car that surpasses U.S. safety standards for rear-end collisions.”

Lei also explained that the vehicles will be compatible with Apple’s iPhones, iPads, CarPlay, and AirPlay.

According to a November filing released by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Bloomberg states that Xiaomi’s EV will be a five-seat sedan with a panoramic glass roof. As for colors, a post on Thursday from the company’s official Weibo account showed a bright blue car with a dark glass roof, and Lei also disclosed two additional colors today: green and grey.

Lei says he is not put off by the competition in the market when it comes to autonomous driving. He said, “Self-driving technologies are changing very fast, and starting late has its advantages. It means we can work from a higher threshold and build from there.”