BYD<\/a> and Elon Musk\u2019s Tesla.<\/p>\nA basic SU7 model will cost 215,900 yuan ($29,868), Lei told a glitzy launch news conference in Beijing on Thursday evening. The sleek and sporty SU7 will be available in nine colours and includes \u201csound simulation\u201d, Lei said, \u201cto recreate the thrill of driving a sports car\u201d.<\/p>\n
It also offers plenty of other gimmicks, such as karaoke equipment and a mini-fridge.<\/p>\n
Xiaomi has promised it will be \u201cthe best-looking, best-driving and smartest car\u201d priced under 500,000 yuan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 200,000 to 250,000 yuan range, that actually is the most competitive segment in the China EV space at the moment,\u201d Johnson Wan, an analyst at Jefferies Financial Group Inc, told Bloomberg.<\/p>\n
Lei told Thursday\u2019s news conference that his company\u2019s debut vehicle was comparable to Tesla\u2019s Model 3 and surpassed the American maker\u2019s sedan in some aspects.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we can provide a better product for Model 3 users,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Xiaomi is the world\u2019s third-biggest smartphone maker, and its experience in that sector has helped shape its EV strategy.<\/p>\n
Lu Weibing, Xiaomi\u2019s president, told CNBC last month that there were around 20 million people who used the company\u2019s premium smartphones, a figure that helped it price the SU7.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the initial purchasers will be very overlapped with the smartphone users. So that\u2019s our strategy,\u201d Lu said.<\/p>\n
Cut-throat market<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cBy entering the premium segment, Xiaomi can carve out a niche against established brands like Tesla and Nio,\u201d Abhishek Murali, senior electric vehicle analyst at Rystad Energy, told AFP<\/em>.<\/p>\n\u201cTargeting affluent Chinese consumers with a premium EV allows Xia\u00adomi to potentially offset the high manufacturing costs typically faced by EV startups,\u201d Murali said.<\/p>\n
The launch of the SU7 comes just days after BYD, the world\u2019s top seller of EVs, posted record annual profits as it pushes a rapid expansion overseas into countries in Southeast Asia, as well as further afield in Latin America and Europe.<\/p>\n
In a note attached to the earnings report, BYD CEO Wang Chuanfu acknowledged the year had not been all smooth sailing.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the beginning of the year, the recovery of automobile consumption was relatively lagging behind, affected by the switch in promotional policies and market price fluctuations,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2024<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BEIJING: Chinese consumer tech giant Xiaomi launched its first electric vehicle in Beijing on Thursday, injecting itself into a fiercely competitive sector in the world\u2019s largest car market. China\u2019s EV sector has grown rapidly in recent years \u2014 propelled by purchasing subsidies that were discontinued in late 2022 \u2014 and dozens of domestic automakers are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2024\/03\/660604ae1bffe.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}