215,900, I took rice noodles to test drive SU7 at three o'clock in the morning
Produced by | At the forefront of entrepreneurship
Author | Wei Shuai
Edit | Feng Yu
American Editor | Wu Yizhong
Audit | Ode
March 28, 7 p.m. sharp. With the end of the countdown, Lei Jun wore a blazer with a spring green color scheme and walked into the stage in high spirits.
"I've never seen a car brand launch event that has attracted so much attention across the network. One car blogger exclaimed.
In the more than two-hour press conference, Lei Jun explained everything from the color matching of the whole vehicle, wheel matching, front trunk, mobile phone holder, Mijia multi-functional flashlight, car refrigerator, canopy and front windshield sunscreen, sunshade and parasol, Lei Jun explained them one by one;
Of course, the value of Xiaomi SU7's products goes without saying, and the most concerned by the outside world is still the pricing. The barrage of "how much" and "how much" filled the entire live broadcast.
At 20:47, the price of Xiaomi SU7 finally hit the big screen: 215,900 yuan. Lei Jun cut the price by 30,000 yuan to express Xiaomi's sincerity to rice noodles friends.
(Photo / Xiaomi SU7 live press conference)
In addition to the standard version, Xiaomi SU7 Pro and SU7 MAX are priced at 245,900 yuan and 299,900 yuan.
As soon as the live broadcast ended, the offline test drive of Xiaomi SU7 was started simultaneously. Xiao Jin (pseudonym), a product experience engineer at the Xiaomi Automobile Experience Center, revealed to "Jiemian News Entrepreneurship Frontline" that his test drive customers have been scheduled from the end of the press conference to 3 am on the 29th.
In fact, for this moment, Xiao Jin has been preparing for three days.
At 4 a.m. on March 25, a Xiaomi SU7 with a bay blue color scheme was parked in the Xiaomi Home on the B2 floor of the Hopson Hui shopping mall in Beijing.
The original Xiaomi mobile phone products in the store have been moved to the rear area of the store, and the conspicuous area at the entrance has been converted into a car showroom.
From the show car to the store, Xiaojin has been rotating for more than 24 hours. At around 4 o'clock in the morning on the 25th, after all the preparations in the store were made, 11 product experience engineers, including Xiaojin, only went home to wash up briefly, and then returned to the store again to prepare for the "battle".
It is no exaggeration to describe it as "facing the battle". From the opening of the mall at ten o'clock, 11 staff members began to explain and receive work, and Xiaojin's mobile phone never stopped, constantly contacting customers in the store. If a large number of customers enter the store, there may even be a staff member who receives 2-3 groups of customers at the same time.
In the automotive industry, it is rare for a new car to be launched to receive such high attention from the outside world, and the attention and heat are still fermenting.
On the 25th, Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi Automobile, said on Weibo: Everyone's enthusiasm today is beyond our imagination.
The fact that only the exterior of the vehicle and part of the interior can be glimpsed through the windows still can't stop consumers' curiosity about this new car.
In the three months since the technology conference at the end of last year, the outside world has never stopped speculating about the price.
Since the beginning of 2024, China's new energy vehicle market has undergone significant changes, and the involution situation has been upgraded. According to the 2024 McKinsey China Automotive Consumer Insights survey, price reductions have little impact on consumers' willingness to buy a car, with more than eighty percent of users saying they would not buy a new car because of the price cut.
Perhaps it is precisely because of this realization that Lei Jun has long publicly responded to the pricing: Xiaomi's first car SU7 is indeed a bit expensive, but please believe that what we are doing is "expensive for a reason".
From Xiaomi's official announcement of the car three years ago to the official release of the new car SU7, the answer has been revealed.
"It's hard to build a car, but success must be cool. For Lei Jun, the last entrepreneurial battle in his life has begun, and for consumers, Mr. Lei's biggest "periphery" is really coming.
1. Countdown to listing
On March 25th, walking into the Beijing Hopson Hui Xiaomi Home Experience Store, everyone picked up their mobile phones without exception and pointed at the protagonist in the center of the venue - Xiaomi SU7.
"There are so many people that we are busy all day contacting interested users who have made appointments for tastings, and everyone is very excited to see the actual car. Xiao Jin, who has not rested for more than 24 hours, is still in good spirits, and constantly introduces the Xiaomi SU7 in front of him to the "Interface News - Entrepreneurship Frontline".
According to the observation of "Jiemian News - Entrepreneurship Frontline", this Xiaomi Home experience store located in Beijing's largest business district of less than 100 square meters, there are 11 car sales staff alone, they are dressed in uniform black short-sleeved overalls, surrounded by inquiring consumers, and there is even a long queue at the door during the peak hours of foot traffic in the afternoon.
Ms. Chen, a consumer who came on purpose, said that her son had been looking forward to the Xiaomi SU7 for a long time, so as soon as the show car arrived at the store, she hurried over to help him understand the situation.
(Photo / Xiaomi official WeChat)
Another customer, Mr. Zhao, said directly that he was only waiting for Mr. Lei to announce some details of the product's intelligent driving at the press conference. "If the pricing is reasonable and the smart driving is not bad, I may just make up my mind and strive to be one of the first owners. Mr. Zhao said that after he expressed his intention to set up a high-end car, the sales said that he could arrange an expedited test drive on the evening of the 28th.
"Xiaomi's 24-hour test drive was quite surprising to me, this kind of speed and sales enthusiasm has not been experienced by other brands. Mr. Zhao said.
Similar to Mr. Zhao, Xiao Jin told Jiemian News Entrepreneurship Frontier that many consumers have done a lot of homework in advance and have a high intention to book a car. "There are several customers who have been in the store for more than an hour, studying the details of the vehicles in various ways. ”
More consumer curiosity is still stuck on pricing. "Has the price been set", "Will the first batch of blind users have some preferential policies", "Do you have any inside information" and other details, Xiaojin's answer is the standard answer: "Everything will be announced at the press conference on the 28th".
But that doesn't stop consumers from expecting highly.
After all, Xiaomi has used the phrase "a little expensive" many times in the mobile phone business, and the final price is unexpectedly sincere, and this reversal has become an unwritten agreement between Xiaomi and consumers. Therefore, the outside world is still keen to wait for the last-minute reversal of the Xiaomi car press conference.
(Photo / Xiaomi official WeChat)
The applause and applause after the announcement of the price of 215,900 yuan have proved this.
Wang Ke, a senior analyst at Analysys, told Jiemian News that pre-listing warm-up is a must before the release of a new car, after all, in the current competition in the new energy vehicle market, winning voice and attention is equivalent to winning the opportunity.
Wang Ke said that the price of Xiaomi cars has indeed earned enough gimmicks recently, and while winning attention, it will also make people who are looking forward to low prices slowly adapt to the real price.
2. With its own heat, the carnival of rice noodles
The popularity brought by the arrival of new Xiaomi cars in the store is only the first step of the "rice noodles" carnival.
As one of the most sticky fan groups, rice noodles have always been known for their extremely high brand loyalty. Rice noodles, which have been accumulated and grown since 2010, are also constantly improving their overall purchasing power with the construction of Xiaomi's brand and ecosystem, paying for the interconnected ecology created by Xiaomi. According to the data, as of June 2023, Xiaomi's global MIUI monthly active users have reached 606 million.
A large number of rice noodle groups are likely to become intended users of Xiaomi Auto. A senior rice fan who collects Xiaomi products all year round told "Interface News - Entrepreneurship Frontline" that Xiaomi cars are the biggest "periphery" targeted by rice noodle fanatics.
It is reported that on March 13, Xiaomi officially announced that it would hold a Xiaomi SU7 launch conference on the 28th, and the test drive appointments of Xiaomi SU7 increased by 100,000 orders on the same day, of which the number of single store reservations even reached more than 10,000.
According to more sources, since the static tasting of Xiaomi cars, the retention rate of clues for appointment tasting and test drive is very high, almost reaching 100%, which is much higher than that of other car brands.
Lei Jun himself has become the official spokesperson of Xiaomi Automobile, and with his personal influence, he has driven the topic and popularity of Xiaomi SU7.
Since March 18th, Lei Jun has begun to punch in on time every day Xiaomi SU7 release countdown, and simultaneously released video and text information such as Xiaomi car factory, vehicle testing, and answering questions from netizens.
New Douyin data shows that in the past week (March 18-March 24), with the blessing of the series of short videos of "Lei Jun Takes You to See the Car Factory" and "Lei Jun Answers Netizens' Questions", Lei Jun's Douyin fans increased by more than 390,000, and he was the only technology account on the list that week.
Even the same overalls worn by Lei Jun in the video have become the target of rice fans. Lei Jun said that the tooling is the tooling of the Xiaomi automobile factory, and the same tooling has been put on the shelves of the Xiaomi Mall, with a price of 299 yuan and a limited edition of 800 pieces. However, it is currently sold out in the marketplace.
Under the pursuit of 10,000 kilometers of fans, Xiaomi Auto has indeed brought a lot of scene-based experiences to rice fans in the creation of new cars. According to the product information and revelations revealed by Lei Jun, Xiaomi SU7 fully considers the hand-car interconnection in the creation of new cars, including the real-time interconnection between the mobile phone and the home screen, and the interconnection of the rear external expansion screen.
According to the news learned from the "Interface News and Entrepreneurship Frontline" in the Xiaomi Home Experience Store, the Xiaomi Pad6S Pro in the store has opened up the interconnection of the human workshop, compatible with the surging OS system of the Xiaomi car machine, and can be directly fixed on the back of the front seat through the magnetic buckle design, so as to realize tablet car control, and in the future, it can support more than 30 kinds of car control functions including navigation, air conditioning, and audio and video through the Xiaomi car app to achieve ecological interconnection.
At the same time, Xiaomi Auto will also open the port of Apple devices to create a human-car home ecology with an open mind.
In Lei Jun's view, the technology accumulated by Xiaomi's 14 years of mobile phones will be gradually applied to cars in the future, and the whole ecology of people, cars and homes can provide users with ubiquitous intelligent life. "Ecology is the real killer feature of Xiaomi Auto. ”
In the view of Zhang Xiang, a visiting professor at the Yellow River Institute of Science and Technology, Xiaomi, as the world's first mobile phone company, can bring a lot of new things to the automotive industry.
3. The last battle of life
Some decisions are made overnight.
Lei Jun's dream of building a car may be traced back to ten years ago. In 2013, Lei Jun himself went to the United States twice to visit Musk and test drive Tesla, which has not yet entered the Chinese market. After the test drive, Lei Jun immediately ordered two, one for himself and one for Yu Yongfu.
In the following years, the new force of car manufacturing in China's auto market began to rise, and Lei Jun, who had not yet set foot in car manufacturing, has become an investor in NIO and Xpeng Motors.
In 2015, Lei Jun invested in NIO's Series A financing through Shunwei Capital, and in 2017 and 2019, Lei Jun invested in Xpeng Motors twice to support new forces to build cars.
Until 2020, Lei Jun still bluntly said that building a car is a difficult thing. But a year later, in 2021, Xiaomi Auto was born.
(Photo / Xiaomi official WeChat)
In the three years since, Lei Jun and the Xiaomi car behind him have witnessed the most brutal involution of China's new energy vehicle market - Tesla, Wei Xiaoli, BYD, Geely, and Huawei behind the car factory, surrounded by rivals. This means that from the moment Xiaomi built the car, it was destined to be a decisive battle in the first battle.
Focusing on the automotive business, Xiaomi Auto has made several layouts in 2023 and clarified its goals for the new decade, and is committed to building a "whole ecology of people, cars and homes" through large-scale investment in the research and development of core technologies for autonomous driving.
At the listing press conference, Lei Jun made no secret of his importance to intelligence. According to Lei Jun, Xiaomi Auto has created two sets of intelligent driving solutions, using the same source of technical solutions, and insisting on full-stack self-development. Among them, intelligent assisted driving and urban NOA will be delivered immediately after listing, and user testing will be launched in April and nationwide will be opened in August.
According to Lei Jun, in terms of research and development, up to now, Xiaomi Group has invested more than 6.7 billion yuan in innovative businesses, including automobiles, and has a research and development team of more than 1,000 people in intelligent driving, which is expected to exceed 1,500 by the end of the year.
According to the research report of Huachuang Securities, in addition to its own R&D investment, Xiaomi has extensively invested in intelligent driving, on-board chips, power batteries, lidar and other companies in the upstream and downstream of the automotive industry chain through Shunwei Capital, Xiaomi Group and industrial funds in the past ten years.
In terms of channel construction, with the help of Xiaomi's more than 10,000 offline retail stores across the country, Xiaomi Auto can achieve the first batch of 59 stores in 29 cities and rely on this. At the same time, Xiaomi Auto has begun to prepare for the site selection and construction of the second batch of delivery centers, realizing the nationwide layout in batches.
On Xiaomi's earnings call on March 19, Lu Weibing, president of Xiaomi Group, said that Xiaomi's internal goal is to be among the top three in the pure electric luxury car industry. According to a person familiar with the matter, Xiaomi Auto's current car is ready, and the test drive of high-intention customers will begin immediately after the end of the press conference on the evening of the 28th, and the first batch of owners may realize the rapid ordering and pick-up of the car.
The final battle of life has arrived. By all accounts, the Xiaomi car is ready, and only the final market test remains.
*Note: The title picture in the article is from Xiaomi's official WeChat.