Author | Hanxing
Cover Source | Xiaomi Automobile Press Conference
At the press conference on December 28, which was full of publicity and suspense, Lei Jun unceremoniously compared Xiaomi Automobile to the two most iconic brands. Car companies - Porsche, which is full of luxury, and Tesla, which is full of technology.
Lei Jun’s performance before the press conference can be described as modest. On December 27, Lei Jun booked outdoor large-screen billboards in several cities and posted several Weibo posts to pay tribute to BYD, NIO, Xpeng, Ideal, and Huawei, the pioneers in the new energy automobile industry. This is not enough, we also need to add the word "sincerity".
However, at the press conference, a series of friends and businessmen who were not directly named were subjected to crushing "complaints". "Being late has its advantages. We have a high starting point." Lei Jun said. He invested 3,400 engineers and over 10 billion in research and development expenses for Xiaomi's first car.
's management of expectations from the outside world and potential consumers, Lei Jun contributed a textbook-level show. The question is, how many rice fans can afford Xiaomi su7, which is destined to not be too cheap?
Lei Jun sets the tone: Xiaomi cars are not cheap
In order to render and highlight the high-end positioning of Xiaomi cars, Lei Jun has done his homework.
The ppt of this press conference can be said to be a collection of luxury cars: Tesla model s, Porsche taycan turbo, BMW 5 series, Mercedes-Benz eqs, and Maybach all appeared. Lei Jun also mentioned these luxury brands many times in his 3-hour speech. .
Lei Jun said that the automobile industry has developed for a hundred years and has achieved a very high level of mechanical quality of cars, and Porsche is the best benchmark. Since the new century, Tesla has taken the lead in creating mobile smart terminals. "Now, Xiaomi believes that creating an advanced mobile smart space is the core proposition of the automobile industry in the new century."
The day before the press conference, some media reported that at a recent Xiaomi internal event, Xiaomi Auto Vice President and Xiaomi Yu Liguo, political commissar of the Beijing Automobile Headquarters, revealed that Xiaomi’s automobile department currently has 3,700 people, and its goal is to build a dream car that can rival Porsche and Tesla.
Lei Jun affirmed this positioning at the press conference. "The goal set by Xiaomi Auto is to rival Porsche and Tesla, to create a dream car for the new era of the automobile industry, and to create a smart mobile space that looks good, drives well, is comfortable, and is safe." The arrangement of the
press conference also closely followed this theme. . In the first hour and a half, Lei Jun focused on Xiaomi Auto's technological sense; in the second hour and a half, Lei Jun spent all his energy explaining Xiaomi Auto's product design.
, a high-performance, technologically ecological C-class sedan, is naturally not cheap. Two days before the press conference, Lei Jun began to take full precautions against the high cost of Xiaomi Su7, intentionally or unintentionally.
In a Weibo post on December 26, Lei Jun reviewed Xiaomi's three-year car-making process and said that the automobile industry is very complex and it is a new beginning for himself and Xiaomi. To this end, Xiaomi has gathered thousands of expert-level talents, invested tens of billions of yuan, and worked hard for more than 1,000 days.
When answering questions from netizens, Lei Jun said that the pricing of Xiaomi cars has not yet been finalized, "but the su7 is indeed a bit expensive, but please believe that what Xiaomi makes is expensive for a reason."
Throughout the press conference, Lei Jun also frequently pointed out that "this car is not cheap."
For example, when introducing battery pack technology, Lei Jun said that the battery core of Xiaomi cars is filled with 165 pieces of airgel insulation material, which has extremely strong heat insulation and is also very expensive.
When talking about battery life, Lei Jun did not mention the relatively low-cost BYD lithium iron phosphate battery in the catalog declared by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Instead, he talked about the su7 being equipped with CATL's 101-degree ternary lithium battery, which is currently on the market. Cars with this battery are generally priced at more than 400,000 yuan. Therefore, "please stop talking about 99,000 yuan, and stop talking about 149,000 yuan."
From the beginning, Lei Jun has been laying the foundation for Xiaomi Auto’s high-end positioning. He concluded in his book "Thoughts on Xiaomi Entrepreneurship" published last year that he is in the middle of two "battles", one is a life and death battle for high-end mobile phones, and the other is the final battle for Xiaomi cars.
And Lei Jun did not want to experience another life and death battle in the final battle.
Since the early days of Xiaomi's establishment, Lei Jun has been emphasizing Xiaomi's technological attributes and Internet thinking. However, Xiaomi, which started with the technologically-rich Miui operating system, has been firmly labeled as "extremely cost-effective".
Subsequently, Lei Jun and Xiaomi spent more than three years and tried several generations of high-end products. It was not until Xiaomi 14 released in 2023 that high-end development began to take off.
In October this year, Lei Jun proposed the company’s new ten-year goal within Xiaomi, which is to invest heavily in underlying core technologies and strive to become a new generation of global hard technology leader.
With this press conference, which only talks about technology, not products, and no pricing, Lei Jun wants to establish the "personality" of technology for Xiaomi Motors and reach the end in one step.
There is no mention of money in every sentence, everything is about money
In order to prove that this expensive car is worth the money, Lei Jun spent a full three hours to publicly sell the core selling points of Xiaomi Auto to the outside world.
Lei Jun once revealed that Xiaomi will invest US$10 billion in building cars in 10 years, including an initial investment of 10 billion yuan.
Where did Xiaomi spend its 10 billion? Lei Jun’s answer is, technology + ecology. It is specifically reflected in five aspects: motor, battery, large die-casting, intelligent driving, and intelligent cockpit. While
introduces these five core technologies, it has also become a standard practice to "complain about" fellow merchants.
Lei Jun first introduced Xiaomi’s self-developed motor. He believed that the motor is the core technology of electric vehicles and directly determines the performance of the car. "Mainstream luxury brands such as BBA and Porsche have reached 16,000 rpm. Tesla used to be the global motor ceiling. The new model s plaid sells for close to one million and has a rotation speed of 20,000 rpm."
Xiaomi's v6 and v6s The motor reaches 21,000 rpm and will be installed on the first batch of Xiaomi su7 models. Lei Jun said that the 22,000-rpm motor released by a friend a month ago is actually still far behind Xiaomi in terms of maximum torque, maximum power, and power density. Regarding
batteries, Lei Jun said that Xiaomi has developed a new super 800v (volt) silicon carbide high-voltage platform, and deliberately emphasized that Xiaomi’s 800v is “real 800v”.
"Most competitors claim 800v, but in fact they can't reach it. Some can claim to be 800v if they exceed 500v." Lei Jun said that Xiaomi's highest voltage reaches 871v. "Other car manufacturers may say they are 900v or quasi-900v." .
In 2020, Tesla ushered in the era of integrated die-casting. Xiaomi Motors, which regards Tesla as its benchmark, has also developed large die-casting technology. Lei Jun demonstrated Xiaomi's fully self-developed 9,100-ton large die-casting cluster at the press conference, and claimed that Xiaomi is the only automaker in China that has both a full-stack self-developed large die-casting cluster and self-developed alloy materials.
In terms of intelligent driving, Lei Jun announced a research and development progress in August last year. A total of 3.3 billion yuan was invested in the first phase, and was subsequently increased to 4.7 billion yuan.
At this press conference, he once again elaborated on the latest progress of Xiaomi’s intelligent driving.
Xiaomi adopts the same mainstream solution in the industry as Tesla, bev+transformer+occupies the underlying algorithm of the network, and adds technologies such as zoom, vector algorithm, and large road model.
Xiaomi su7's super-resolution network technology can reduce the recognition accuracy to 0.1 meters. "Tesla can achieve 0.34 meters, and domestic friends can achieve 0.2 meters."
An employee of a leading smart driving company who was in charge of mass production projects told Snow Leopard Finance that compared with the autonomous driving video in August last year, the Xiaomi autonomous driving at this conference can already bypass cardboard boxes and construction areas. Yes, this level of progress would take traditional car companies two to three years to achieve.
But he also believes that what Xiaomi has released now is only a demo, and the videos presented are also relatively basic scenes, such as avoiding pedestrians at zebra crossings. The first-tier self-driving cars can already drive into crowded urban villages.
Lei Jun put the introduction of the smart cockpit at the end. He believes that this is the most powerful part of Xiaomi and the most anticipated part of Mi fans.
Xiaomi’s car and phone are equipped with ThePaper os system, which can realize seamless connection between the mobile phone and the car and the phone. Xiaomi ecological hardware products can also connect the car and the phone with the same account without password.
Apple has never been absent from Xiaomi’s press conferences, and this time is no different.
Lei Jun said that for those users who have not yet bought a Xiaomi mobile phone, Xiaomi Auto has the best support for Apple devices. It not only fully supports wireless carplay, but also can realize audio and video streaming based on airplay, and even supports iPad rear expansion and air conditioning control. , music and seating.
"I think Apple users will have a very good experience when driving a Xiaomi car."
However, the capital market did not respond enthusiastically to this conference. On December 28, the Hang Seng Technology Index of Hong Kong stocks rose by 3.4%. Technology and Internet concept stocks generally rose, but Xiaomi fell by 0.25%. "Xiaomi Group's stock price turned lower" became a hot search on Weibo.
builds cars for the "elites of the times", is Lei Jun drifting away?
Faced with Lei Jun’s unremitting efforts to “Amway”, the focus of Mi fans and car buying groups is still the pricing of Xiaomi’s first car. During the
press conference, guessing the price was the most lively topic in a "Mi Fan" group of nearly 500 people. "Now I think 199,000 is impossible." "At least 299,000." "It doesn't look like I can afford it."
In the comments on Lei Jun's Weibo, there were also many high-like comments asking about the price of Xiaomi su7 . Around 5 pm on the 28th, half of the top ten hot searches on Weibo were related to Xiaomi. The second most popular was "Xiaomi car appearance", and the fourth most popular was "Xiaomi car price". Since
has devoted all its efforts to building cars, although the products have always been shrouded in mystery, Lei Jun has never hesitated to show his determination and never missed any opportunity to convey confidence to the outside world. When
was planning Xiaomi's automobile business, Lei Jun once optimistically predicted that even 1% of the tens of millions of rice fans would be willing to pay, which would give Xiaomi a "dream start."
He also proposed a three-level ending inference in his personal biography. The first layer of
is that the mobile phone industry has entered a mature stage of stock competition, and smart cars are becoming the next biggest outlet. Almost all giants in the consumer electronics field have stopped making plans. If Xiaomi does not make cars, it will become a tradition that loses room for growth. company. The second layer of
is the industry ending of smart electric vehicles. Lei Jun believes that in 15 to 20 years, when the industry enters a mature stage, the top five brands in the world will surely hold more than 80% of the market share. In other words, only if they enter the top five in the world and have annual shipments of more than 10 million vehicles, can they Significant. The final game of
is how Xiaomi wins one of the five "ultimate tickets". Lei Jun said that Xiaomi’s determination and confidence in making cars came from Mi Fans. “I don’t think too much and don’t worry about it anymore. Right now I only care about building a good car for Mi Fans.”
However, times have changed, and the “upstarts” in the automotive industry who often compete for luxury cars can still afford Mi Fan? How many users are willing to pay for Xiaomi cars, which Lei Jun personally admitted are “a bit expensive”?
Lei Jun once launched a poll on Weibo, "How much do you want Xiaomi's first car to cost?" The voting results showed that the largest number of people chose less than 100,000 yuan, accounting for 39%; those who chose 100,000~ The number of people with 150,000 yuan ranked second, accounting for about 27%. After the
press conference, some rice fans spoke on social media, hoping that Xiaomi cars can achieve the ultimate cost-effectiveness and give back to rice fans.
After all, Xiaomi Motors, which is belatedly arriving, will face fierce competition in the Red Ocean.
Puyin International predicts in a research report that domestic new energy passenger vehicle sales will reach 11.19 million units in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 27%, and the growth rate is lower than the 36.5% in 2023. The new energy vehicle market is rapidly saturated. .
A sales director of a car company told Snow Leopard Financial News his judgment: referring to the Huawei Smart S7, which is also a C-class car, the price of the two-wheel drive version of the S7 is expected to be "just over 200,000," and the price of the four-wheel drive version may be higher than that of the two-wheel drive version. The version is about 50,000 yuan more expensive.
Tianfeng Securities analyst Guo Mingchi previously predicted that the price of Xiaomi cars will be less than 300,000 yuan, and the shipment volume in 2024 is estimated to be 50,000 to 60,000 units; if the price is close to or even less than 250,000 yuan, the shipment will There is room for growth in volume.
Currently, the market’s pricing expectations for Xiaomi cars are generally between 200,000 and 300,000 yuan. In this price range, there are Tesla model 3, BYD Han EV, BYD Seal, Xpeng P7, Zhijie S7, Jikrypton 001, NIO ET5, BMW i3, etc., which can be called a forest of strong ones.
Xiaomi mobile phones carved a niche with their cost-effectiveness. Now facing a more difficult situation, is Lei Jun "drifting"? Or should we once again take advantage of the "expectation management master" and do the opposite: emphasize that Xiaomi cars are not cheap, raise external expectations, and finally surprise the market when the price is announced?
No one knows the answer until that number is revealed.
(Wang Yajun and Wei Linhua also contributed to this article)
