The Chinese electronics giant Xiaomi, which has been preparing its entry into the automotive industry for years, will market its first electric car on Thursday, March 28 in China, where a price war is being waged in this very competitive market.
The brand is essential in the country for smartphones, touch screen tablets, connected watches, headphones, scooters and even scooters, but also for smart rice cookers.
Beijing-based Xiaomi announced in 2021 that it would enter the coveted electric vehicle niche, which many Chinese brands are turbocharging.
Sedan with a design close to a luxury sports car
The group launches its Xiaomi SU7 (“Speed Ultra” 7), a sedan whose design is reminiscent of a luxury sports car. The SU7 is equipped with a sound system that “recreates the excitement of driving a sports car,” Xiaomi claims.
With this model, “I am putting my reputation at stake,” warned Xiaomi boss Lei Jun on the automotive social network.
Evergrande NEV, a subsidiary of the indebted real estate group, gave itself “three to five years” when it was created in 2019 to become the “most powerful” manufacturer in the world in the field of electric cars. The brand is now at stake for its survival, weakened by the setbacks of its parent company and by sales that are struggling to take off.
Xiaomi has not yet revealed the price of its car. But his boss had mentioned less than 500,000 yuan (about 64,000 euros). Analysts expect it to be half. “The range of 200,000 to 250,000 yuan is currently the most competitive range in China for electric vehicles,” underlines one of them, Johnson Wan, from the Jefferies investment bank, interviewed by the Bloomberg agency.
Price war between manufacturers
The launch of the SU7 follows electric champion BYD’s record annual profit release in 2023 on Tuesday.
The Chinese electricity market has seen rapid development in recent years, driven in particular by purchasing subsidies, which however disappeared at the end of December 2022.
To keep pace in a context of economic slowdown, dozens of local manufacturers have embarked on a price war in China, at the risk of weakening their profitability.
Source: BFM TV
