Chinese electronics behemoth Xiaomi came out swinging when it launched its first EV, the SU7, just a month ago. Determined to keep that momentum, Xiaomi is already planning a successor that will directly take on the infamous Tesla Model Y.
According to a new Bloomberg report, Xiaomi's next vehicle will be an SUV and could launch as early as 2025. This move would rapidly position the brand in greater competition with Tesla and other domestic rivals like BYD, Nio, and Xpeng.
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The Rise of Xiaomi's Automotive Arm
14-year-old Smartphone maker Xiaomi first began its $10 billion EV project in 2021. Three years later, the brand launched its (so far) wildly successful sedan, the SU7. The automaker now reportedly has two other vehicles planned, the first of which could compete directly against the Tesla Model Y.
According to a source speaking with Bloomberg, Xiaomi had internal talks about its SUV product as far back as 2021, even benchmarking the in-development SUV product to the Tesla Model Y. Ultimately, the company decided to release the SU7 sedan as its first vehicle with the unnamed SUV slated for future development.
Xiaomi is now ready to bring that vehicle to market. Bloomberg says the company plans to start mass production in late 2025 following the second phase of construction for its Beijing production facility.
Specific information like pricing and projected demand for the future vehicle is currently unknown and may shift depending on Xiaomi's overall production capacity. The automaker currently has a production capacity of around 10,000 units per month but plans to expand the facility to handle as many as 300,000 vehicles per year after the second phase of construction is completed.
It's not hard to show just how well received the SU7 was by the average consumer—I mean, Xiaomi received 50,000 orders in just the first 27 minutes of it going on sale, and 10,000 of those orders occurred in the first four minutes went the order system went live on Sunday, March 28th. By Friday, April 3rd, it had delivered 5,000 units.
Deliveries continued throughout April, landing on an impressive 7,058 units by the end of the month. On May 1st, Xiaomi announced that it had amassed a backlog of 88,063 "locked-in" orders.
Consumers are absolutely bonkers for Xiaomi's EV, and the preliminary outlook for its success is hard to ignore. In fact, the SU7's order books are completely filled for all of 2024, with an anticipated output of around 100,000 vehicles by year's end.
To put that into perspective, it took Tesla more than 460 days to build 100,000 units of the Model 3 between July 2017 and October 2018. At that time, it was the fastest EV scale-up in history. If it holds to its target, Xiaomi could beat that record by nearly 40%.
In addition to the Model Y fighter, the automaker is also eyeing another model with a lower price tag. The details of that vehicle are still under wraps. However, a source familiar with the matter previously told media outlets that it would be the third vehicle released by the automaker (presumably falling after the SUV) and priced in the $20,000 segment.
