Chinese tech giant Xiaomi has unveiled the sports car variant of its SU7 electric vehicle, with pre-orders starting from over $110,000. The renowned smartphone manufacturer has already delivered more than 20,000 SU7 EVs in October, as it continues to expand its electric car business in the highly competitive market.
Xiaomi, a household name for its smartphones and home appliances, has pledged to deliver 100,000 SU7 EVs by November end. The company first announced its plans to venture into car manufacturing in 2021, and has since started the construction of a dedicated factory.
The standard version of the SU7, Xiaomi’s debut vehicle, was launched in late March at a price tag nearly $4,000 lower than Tesla’s Model 3. Tesla later reduced the price of its car by about $2,000. To date, Xiaomi has delivered over 75,000 SU7 cars, including those shipped in October.
While it took Xiaomi’s Chinese competitors, Xpeng and Nio, about six years to manufacture 100,000 electric cars, Tesla took 12 years to achieve this milestone. Xpeng set a monthly record by delivering over 20,000 cars in September, due largely to its newly launched, cost-efficient brand, Mona. Meanwhile, Nio has been striving to maintain monthly deliveries above 20,000 cars.
Zeekr, an electric car brand by automaker Geely, boasted that it has produced more than 100,000 vehicles in just 1.5 years. Zeekr set a record by delivering 21,333 cars in September.
Brian Tycangco, an analyst at Stansberry Research, believes that Xiaomi is set to become a major player in the world’s largest EV market. Xiaomi’s electric car gross profit margins in August were on par with Xpeng’s, and have likely improved since then, thanks to increased production.
Xiaomi also announced that it has started accepting pre-orders for the high-end sports variant, SU7 Ultra, priced from 814,900 yuan ($114,304), with a product release planned in March 2025. The company received more than 3,600 pre-orders within 10 minutes, each requiring a 10,000 yuan deposit.
Citi analysts expect the launch of the new model and its performance at the Nurburgring race track in Germany to boost sales of Xiaomi’s premium SU7 Max car. They have upgraded their delivery estimates for Xiaomi to 250,000 cars for the next year, up from the previous forecast of 238,000.
According to data from Chinese car industry site Autohome, Tesla’s Model Y was the top-selling battery-powered electric car in China in September with 48,202 vehicles sold. Xiaomi’s SU7 ranked 17th last month with 13,559 cars sold. Xiaomi currently only sells its cars in China and expects it would take at least two to three years for any overseas launch.
