TMTPost --  Xiaomi founder and CEO Lei Jun Xiaomi announced Friday delivery developments of SU7, the first electric vehicle (EV) model of the Chinese smartphone leader.

Credit：Xiaomi

Xiaomi has shipped over 30,000 EVs in more than 3 months since launch of SU7 model, setting a new industry record, and the monthly delivery for July is expected to exceed the 10,000-unit mark again, Lei said at his post on Chinese social media platform Weibo. Xiaomi has completed the capacity expansion and it is anticipated to meet the annual delivery target of 100,000 units in November, according to Lei.

Through the post, Lei reiterated the forecast he first disclosed in a speech a week ago. Lei said on July 19 that the 100,000-unit annual delivery target is expected to be met in November, a month ahead of schedule. It is expected that Xiaomi will open 220 retail stores for its EV business in 59 cities across China in December, Lei added. Reviewing the history of Xiaomi auto business, Lei said it is the U.S. sanctions on Xiaomi’s mobile phone business in 2021 that forced the company to decide to build cars. The chief executive said he personally led a team to visit many automakers, interviewed more than 200 industry insiders, and held four executive meetings to discuss the feasibility. In the end, his comapny made the decision to foray into the automotive industry.  

Xiaomi announced in March, 2021 to set up a wholly owned subsidiary to make EVs, with the initial investment of RMB10 billion and the total input in the coming decade expected amount to US$10 billion. Two years later, Lei Jun said his company aims to become one of the top five automakers in the world within the coming 15 to 20 years. He then revealed late October 2023 that the company plans to launch its car in the first half of 2024, without giving any details. In an interview with China Central Television (CCTV) last December, Lei said Xiaomi invested in 3,400 engineers and the research and development (R&D) spending totaled more than RMB10 billion. He added that Xiaomi has input out-sized resources in its first EV model, ten times of that traditional automakers invest in a model.

Xiaomi officially launched SU7 on March 28, with starting price cheaper than its major competitor: Tesla’s affordable Model 3. CEO Lei presented that day SU7 has a layered pricing since it has three variants. The standard SU7 costs RMB215,900 (US$29,872), and the Pro and Max version are priced at RMB245,900 and RMB299,000, respectively. Lei said the SU7 is RMB30,000 cheaper than Model 3, which starts at RMB245,900 in China.

Xiaomi started presales for SU7 on the day of launch and offered a hand of freebies worth of up to RMB22,000, such as Nappa leather seats and a built-in fridge, to anyone who place the order of the Standard and the Pro version by April 30. The company disclosed at Chinese social media Weibo that it received more than 10,000 preorders in just four minutes since the launch, and preorders topped 50,000 within 27 minutes. These preorders come from customers who had paid a deposit of RMB5,000 that is refundable within seven days since the order is effective.

Xiaomi disclosed at the start of this month that it achieved a new milestone of delivery: the delivery of in June for the first time exceeded the 10,000-unit mark in a month. Xiaomi added the shipment in July is expected to be more than 10,000 vehicles too. Xiaomi said its work to accelerate delivery of SU7 is well on the way as the facility has initiated two-shift production in June. Starting from July 1, the delivery of SU7 series will be further accelerated, and the delivery cycle is expected to be shortened by up to 5 weeks after the order is locked in, Xiaomi said. At the same time, the company will carry out a new round of production line optimization and maintenance in the near future to prepare for further improvement of production capacity. It stressed such optimization and maintenance will not have any impact on the delivery target of more than 10,000 units in July.