Image source: Xiaomi Auto official website
According to the Xiaomi car SU7 launched on March 28, it has attracted wide attention from consumers. Lei Jun, founder, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi Group, announced its "report card", as of April 24, Xiaomi SU7 locked orders more than 75,723 units, from the 20th to the 24th, nearly 6,000 new orders were added in 4 days; The Xiaomi SU7 was released 28 days ago, with a total of 5,781 units delivered. Monthly deliveries will exceed 10,000 units in June, and the full-year delivery target is 100,000 units.
On April 28, just one month after the launch of Xiaomi Automobile, Lei Jun opened a live broadcast to share his heartfelt words of "the last entrepreneurship". Lei Jun believes that Xiaomi must be among the top five in the world to make cars, because only the top five in the world can survive, and the top ten and top fifteen cannot make money, and at present, Xiaomi has a 10% chance of becoming the world's top five.
In the live broadcast, Lei Jun said that the global pure electric models, except for Tesla, everyone is losing money, no one is making money, the loss is outrageous, a car may lose more than 100,000 yuan, and the loss is less than 40,000 yuan, and Xiaomi SU7 may be a medium to small loss, it may be medium, because our sales scale this time is three times larger than we imagined.
Citi previously predicted that Xiaomi Auto would lose an average of 6,800 yuan per SU7 sold this year, and the entire car-making business would lose 4.1 billion yuan. Xu Jieyun, special assistant to the chairman of Xiaomi Group and deputy general manager of the marketing department in China, issued a response saying that "this information may deviate greatly from the actual situation."
Looking back at the business situation caused by Xiaomi:
——Three paths to help Xiaomi build an industrial chain ecosystem in an all-round way
On March 28, 2024, Xiaomi officially announced its first mass-produced smart electric vehicle, Xiaomi SU7, at the car press conference, which also marks the official entry of Xiaomi Group from an "investor" to a "competitor". Looking back at the layout of Xiaomi's smart car business, it can be found that Xiaomi's entry into the field of smart cars is not a whim, but by investing in industrial chain start-ups, focusing on core technologies, and deepening cooperation with supply chain enterprises, it has gradually entered the game to build an ecosystem covering the entire smart car industry chain.
Xiaomi's construction of the whole industry chain ecosystem of smart cars is mainly divided into three paths: first, investment first, through investment in start-ups, etc., to build an industrial chain ecology in an all-round way; Second, through the company's self-research, it has strongly cut into the core technology links such as motors, batteries, large die-casting, intelligent driving, and intelligent cockpits; The third is to deepen cooperation and adopt the method of direct cooperation with suppliers to empower the smart car business. From the perspective of link characteristics, Xiaomi's investment and self-research are mainly focused on core links such as electrification and intelligence, and cooperation is mainly focused on electrical and electronics, chassis/body interior and exterior decoration.
Through the three major paths, the upstream of Xiaomi Auto has covered battery materials, semiconductors and other related fields, the midstream has covered the core links such as electrification system components, intelligent cockpit systems, and intelligent driving systems, and the downstream has laid out the automotive after-sales service market to build an industrial chain ecosystem in an all-round way.
From the perspective of the main suppliers of Xiaomi Auto SU7, Xiaomi's investment company Zejing Electronics AR-HUD products have been supplied to Xiaomi SU7 models, and Xiaomi SU7 Pro and Xiaomi SU7Max are equipped with Hesai ultra-high-definition long-range lidar AT128, with high-end intelligent driving functions, and will be delivered in April and May 2024 respectively.
——In-depth focus to create the core competitive advantage of products
In addition to investing in the layout of the industrial chain through equity participation, Xiaomi focuses on the five core links of automobiles, such as motors, batteries, large die-casting, intelligent driving, and intelligent cockpits, and carries out technical breakthroughs to build the core competitiveness of automotive products. Specifically, in the motor sector, the super motor V6 and V6s jointly developed by Xiaomi, Inovance Technology and United Automotive Electronics have caught up with Porsche and Tesla in terms of speed and power density, while the V8s independently developed and produced by Xiaomi has a speed of 27200 rpm and a motor power density of 10.14kw/kg, which is expected to be launched in 2025; In the battery sector, Xiaomi has developed CTB integrated battery technology and the industry's first cell inversion technology to improve the space utilization rate of the battery pack by 77.8%; In the large die-casting link, Xiaomi independently designed a 9,100-ton integrated large-scale die-casting equipment cluster system, and completed the self-research of a full set of processes and standards for large-scale die-casting, and at the same time self-developed the high-strength, high-toughness, heat-free and heat-free environmentally friendly die-casting material "Titan Alloy", becoming the only domestic automobile manufacturer with self-developed large-scale die-casting materials that can be mass-produced; In the intelligent driving sector, Xiaomi's full-stack self-developed intelligent driving technology has improved the perception and recognition technology through three technologies: adaptive zoom BEV technology, road large model, and super-resolution occupancy network technology, and the current intelligent driving exclusive team size exceeds 1,000 people. In the intelligent cockpit link, Xiaomi is based on Xiaomi Surging OS to create a closed loop of people, vehicles and homes.
However, compared with other competing cars, in the motor sector, the performance of Xiaomi super motor V6 and V6s is slightly inferior to that of Zhijie S7; In the battery sector, the highlight of Xiaomi SU7 compared to other competing cars is its innovative integration technology, but judging from the data, the battery capacity is slightly lower than that of ZEEKR 007; In the die-casting process, Xiaomi is the only domestic automobile manufacturer that can mass-produce self-developed large die-casting materials, and the advantages are more obvious, but in terms of clamping force, Xiaopeng has an integrated die-casting machine with a current tonnage of up to 12,000 tons, and is about to expand a 16,000-ton die-casting machine, and the competition is fierce; In terms of intelligent driving level, there is a big gap between Xiaomi and other competing cars; In terms of the intelligent cockpit system, based on the global ecological layout of Mijia, it has shown a strong ecological application experience in the smart cabin.
According to the latest market trends report on electric vehicles (EVs) released by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the proportion of EVs in global new car sales will increase from 15% in 2023 to 40% in 2030, and is expected to exceed 50% by 2035. Its cumulative sales will also grow from just under 45 million units in 2023 to 250 million units in 2030 and more than 525 million units in 2035.
According to the IEA, EV sales in China, the world's largest automotive market, have increased significantly. EVs are expected to account for two-thirds of new vehicle sales in 2030 and 85% in 2035. In China, low-cost compact EVs that cost around $10,000 are becoming more popular. According to the report, about 60% of EVs sold in the Chinese market in 2023 are "lower than those of gasoline vehicles".
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