The Chinese technology giant Xiaomi has already launched its first car. The SU7, an electric sedan that attendees at the Mobile World Congress 2024 in Barcelona could see on display at the Asian company’s stand, is already circulating on the streets of the main Chinese cities. On April 3, Lei Jun, CEO and founder of the brand, delivered the first units at an event held in one of the plants that the company has in his country.
In a ceremony similar to those organized by Elon Musk to carry out the delivery of the first examples of some of the Tesla models, Lei Jun starred in the formal scene with his clients. The event was a success due to the media coverage obtained by the launch of Xiaomi’s first car. In just over 24 hours, the firm specialized in the manufacturing of mobile phones and electric scooters already had more than 100,000 reservations in China.
The SU7 is available in two versions, Pro and Max, plus another special one called Founders Edition. The latter has greater features and is limited to 5,000 units. The starting price of the sedan in China is below $30,000, a figure accessible to many users that has caused a significant increase in reservations.
Just four minutes after Jun revealed the price of the SU7, 10,000 orders had already been placed and before the first half hour it had already reached 50,000. Xiaomi reported that after 24 hours it already had almost 89,000 reservations and shortly after it already exceeded 100,000.
Xiaomi compares the SU7 with high-end electrics such as the Tesla Model S Plaid and the Porsche Taycan Turbo. The design of the SU7 combines elements of Tesla and Porsche, with dimensions of 4.99 meters long, 1.96 meters wide and 1.4 meters high.
The car is available in two versions. One develops 220 kW, has rear-wheel drive and reaches a maximum speed of 210 km/h. The other, with all-wheel drive, delivers 495 kW and offers better performance: a top speed of 265 km/h and acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h in 2.78 seconds.
The base model uses a BYD battery with a 73.6 kWh capacity, while the most advanced model uses a nickel, manganese and cobalt battery supplied by CATL, with a 101 kWh capacity. The first of them promises 700 kilometers of autonomy and the second 810 kilometers under the unreliable CLTC cycle, which differs from the WLTP cycle used in Europe. Under the European standard, it is estimated that the autonomy would be between 400 and 500 kilometers.
Since April 3, the start date of its sales period, the Xiaomi SU7 is only available for sale in China. For now, the Asian technology giant has not announced its international expansion plans for this vehicle and limits sales to its own country. However, the fact that Xiaomi exhibited the model at an event as large as Mobile World Barcelona 2024 suggests that the company could be considering the possibility of expanding its presence in other markets outside of China.
In any case, if the Xiaomi SU7 ends up arriving in Spain, it will be affected by a considerable increase in its price due to various factors. In addition to the community tariffs imposed by the EU, the costs associated with transportation and logistics are added. In addition, the difference in VAT rates between Spain (21%) and China (13%) will also contribute to raising the final price of the vehicle, which will be well above the almost $30,000 that the version of the car costs in its country of origin. access to the range.