After almost a decade of trying, Apple finally gave up his effort to produce an electric car last year, so that a project was canceled that $ 10 billion.
But last year in China, the electronics maker Xiaomi launched his first electric car after just three years of development and supplied 135,000 vehicles. It has sworn to double that number in 2025.
Xiaomi's ability to succeed where Apple could not show how thoroughly China started dominating to dominate the supply chain for electric vehicles. Chinese companies have mastered the production of electric vehicles. By tapping that infrastructure, Xiaomi could get components quickly and cheaply.
More Chinese electric vehicle companies – including Leap engine, LI Auto and Seres Group – start to make a profit after burning cash for years in their intense competition for the world's largest car market.
And Xiaomi is not the only Chinese Consumer Electronics Company that branches to electric vehicles. The telecommunications giant Huawei, who has been aimed at sanctions and legal steps for years, makes autonomous driving software. Huawei cooperates with several Chinese car manufacturers, including Seres Group and the State Companies Saic Motor, Baic and Chery.
Xiaomi has long been compared to Apple. It made bets that his rivals rushed to imitate, such as the sale of his cheap, high-design phones mainly online. The Chief Executive, Lei Jun, even dressed as the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, in jeans and a black shirt, for Xiaomi's first telephone launch in 2011.
Xiaomi's first electric car was brought up in March: De SU7, a four-door sedan with artificial intelligence functions that can help with parking, play films for passengers and program Xiaomi Home Appliances from the road. Mr. Lei said it looks like a Porsche. But for $ 30,000 it is a quarter of the price.
Xiaomi makes all kinds of electronics, from robot vacuum cleaners to air conditioners, which are connected via the operating system and are checked in its app. The SU7 is just a gadget again in some respects. It can use data collected from other devices about the daily routine of a driver to determine the best time to charge the batteries of the car.
“Xiaomi really started infiltrating your house,” said Gary NG, an economist at Natixis Corporate & Investment Banking. “Everything is linked to each other, and this is something other companies couldn't do.”
While the SU7 Xiaomi only earned a small fraction of the sale of the best electric vehicle makers in China, the Xiaomi places among Chinese companies that have a big blow to the long command of foreign car manufacturers about the Chinese market for premium cars. In the year since the SU7 went on sale, Porsche deliveries in China fell nearly 30 percent.
On Thursday evening in Beijing, Xiaomi released a high-end version, The SU7 Ultra, in addition to a premium version of the latest smartphone. The company organized a flashy teaser for the car by racing a prototype around the German Nürburgring racing track, where, said Xiaomi, set a record for “fastest four-door sedan”.
Xiaomi is also planning to release a sports vehicle this year, the YU7, according to the legal archives in China.
Chinese electric vehicle companies have benefited from billions of dollars in government support, so that they have helped control of the supply chain to the minerals in the car batteries. This early lead helped two Chinese companies, BYD and contemporary Amperex technology company – known as Catl and added to the list of Chinese military companies of the Pentagon in January – became the largest electric battery makers in the world.
Xiaomi used this supply chain to his advantage. The cars contain batteries from BYD and Catl. It was able to quickly start production by taking over a factory from the Beijing Auto Group. Building workers in Beijing work around the clock on a second factory.
All this production capacity helps Chinese electricity companies to move to production to production in much less time than traditional car manufacturers in China, so that they can quickly bring new models and concentrate on making software that they can constantly update, said Stephen W. Dyer, head of Asia Automotive at Alix partners, a consultancy.
Intense competition at home has encouraged many Chinese car manufacturers to flood the global 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 their way outside of China, said Cui Dongshu, secretary -general of the China passenger Car Association.
Xiaomi's popularity as a maker of all kinds of consumer electronics gave it a deep source of knowledge about Chinese consumer preferences. On the first day SU7s were delivered, buyers could go to the App Store from Xiaomi and get accessories to mislead the cars, such as analog dashboard bells and a row of physical switches that are attached to a touchscreen panel.
“The power of the brand places Xiaomi for many of their competitors,” said Tu Le, a director of the Sino Auto Insights consultancy. “That is what is needed to sell cars worldwide, because it is not just a consumer product, it is an emotional product.”
