Xiaomi’s carmaking arm marked a new milestone on 1 February when founder and CEO Lei Jun used a livestream from the company’s Yizhuang automotive lab to set out production and delivery figures while previewing a new generation of its flagship sedan. The company said its in‑house automotive labs number more than 100 across Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan and Nanjing, an R&D team now exceeding 8,000 people and a testing-and‑validation staff of roughly 800. Xiaomi reported January deliveries of just over 39,000 vehicles and a cumulative delivery tally approaching 600,000 since it entered the sector in 2021.
Lei Jun confirmed that the first‑generation SU7 has been taken off sale as factory lines are retooled to produce the new edition. He said development of the second‑generation SU7 is complete and that the first show cars will reach stores from mid‑February, with a wider market launch slated for April after an early‑deposit phase that began in January. Lei argued that January’s sequential delivery dip was seasonal, and that the month’s shipments were driven largely by the smaller YU7 model rather than the outgoing SU7.
A headline claim from the livestream was that the new SU7 achieves more than 900 kilometres on the CLTC cycle, which Lei presented as Xiaomi’s founding objective: to build the longest‑range electric car in its class. He credited “two years” of iterative optimisation across efficiency and system performance for the gains, positioning range as a key differentiator in a crowded Chinese EV market where software, hardware integration and charging networks are ever more important.
The metrics paint a company that has scaled quickly from a consumer electronics giant into a mass automaker, but they also point to the tensions of that transition. Pulling the first‑gen SU7 from sale will inevitably compress near‑term supply, making month‑to‑month comparisons noisy. At the same time, a January haul of more than 39,000 cars in a traditionally slow month underscores a meaningful production and logistics capability, and a rapid path to volume that many other new entrants have struggled to match.
Lei Jun also used the livestream to rebut social‑media claims that Xiaomi’s used‑car values had collapsed, citing a China Automotive Dealers Association and Jingzhengu report that placed the SU7 at the top of pure‑electric one‑year retention with an 86% value rate. While that figure bolsters Xiaomi’s narrative that its vehicles hold value, residual‑value rankings are vulnerable to methodological quirks and to short‑term interventions by dealers or promotional programmes.
The broader strategic picture matters for international observers. Xiaomi is applying a vertically integrated product playbook familiar from smartphones to cars: heavy R&D, tight control of hardware and software, rapid iteration between generations and close inventory management. That approach can drive scale and margin compression, but it also risks quality and reputational fallout if production ramps outpace durable reliability or if promotional claims—about range or residuals—are treated sceptically by regulators and consumers abroad.
Looking ahead, the immediate test for Xiaomi will be whether it can translate a powerful supply chain and a popular domestic brand into sustained margins and exportable product quality. The second‑generation SU7 will be an important litmus test: if real‑world range and availability match Lei Jun’s claims, Xiaomi will strengthen its position among China’s leading EV challengers; if not, the firm could face sharper scrutiny over its valuation, dealer practices and long‑term resale performance.