Automotive / MobilityChina
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JOURNEY · DETAIL
Xiaomi EV Lei Jun: Betting All Reputation on Three Years of Car Building, SU7 Uses Fan Ecosystem to Breach New Energy Red Ocean
Founded: Lei Jun · Xiaomi EV Co., Ltd. (Under Xiaomi Group)
JOURNEY
Key Fields
FIELD STAMPSIndustryAutomotive / Mobility
RegionChina
ScaleGiant
ChannelOther
Origin
In 2021, Lei Jun announced entry into car manufacturing, publicly proclaiming this as the last major entrepreneurship of his life, willing to stake his entire personal reputation with an initial investment of 10 billion RMB and a 10-billion-USD investment over the next decade. At that time, Xiaomi's core mobile phone business growth was peaking, and Lei Jun judged that intelligent electric vehicles were the largest track of the next decade, as well as the final puzzle piece to complete Xiaomi's 'Human x Car x Home' full ecosystem strategy. In terms of mode, Xiaomi chose to build its own factory and pursue full-stack self-research rather than taking the asset-light route of OEM outsourcing.
Milestones
2021
Official Announcement of Car Building Turning Point
On March 30, 2021, Xiaomi Group officially announced its entry into intelligent electric vehicles. Lei Jun announced he would personally lead the team as CEO of Xiaomi EV, with an initial investment of 10 billion RMB and 10 billion USD invested over the next decade. Previously, Lei Jun conducted long-term internal research and visited multiple automotive industry insiders, believing that car manufacturing was a battle Xiaomi had to fight, otherwise the next-generation consumer electronics ecosystem entry would be choked by auto companies.
2022
Team Building and Factory Construction Failure
In 2022, Xiaomi EV acquired land in Yizhuang, Beijing, to build its Phase 1 factory. However, new-energy vehicle startups collectively fell into a winter at the time, and the market generally doubted cross-border car manufacturing. Xiaomi's stock price remained depressed for a long time, and Lei Jun confessed in his annual speech that this was his most stressful period. Internal divisions also arose over whether to persist in full-stack self-research for autonomous driving, ultimately deciding to maintain high-intensity investment and expand the intelligent driving team to thousands of members.
2023
Technology Launch Event PMF
On December 28, 2023, Xiaomi EV held its first technology launch event, where Lei Jun detailed self-developed super motors, large die-casting technology, and intelligent cockpits, but deliberately refrained from announcing prices. This triggered months of ongoing price-guessing fever across the entire internet, with related topics long dominating trending searches. This price-free launch accumulated massive attention as a buildup for the official launch in March 2024, becoming a textbook marketing teaser case.
2024
SU7 Launch Growth
On March 28, 2024, the SU7 was officially launched with three versions priced at 215,900, 245,900, and 299,900 RMB respectively, garnering close to 90,000 firm orders within 24 hours of launch, far exceeding internal expectations. Lei Jun admitted in an April live stream that sales exceeded expectations by 3 to 5 times, but the surging orders immediately pushed production capacity to its limits, extending delivery cycles from weeks to months. Lei Jun confessed he was afraid of both poor sales and too much sales.
2025
Highway Accident Crisis Failure
In late March 2025, an SU7 was involved in a severe highway accident resulting in three fatalities. Safety boundary issues regarding intelligent driving assistance triggered widespread public questioning across the internet, and Xiaomi EV faced its biggest trust crisis since building cars. Lei Jun temporarily reduced public appearances and live-streaming frequency, and the company shifted to strengthening safety communications and test transparency. This storm directly altered Xiaomi's brand communication strategy for the following year.
2025
Delivery Ramp-up Growth
In 2025, Xiaomi EV's annual deliveries exceeded 410,000 units, achieved relying solely on two pure electric models, the SU7 and YU7—an extremely rare feat among mainstream new energy car companies. The automotive business became profitable that year, serving as Xiaomi Group's new growth engine. Lei Jun officially handed in this scorecard during a live stream on January 3, 2026, setting a long-term goal of entering the global top five automakers within 15 to 20 years.
2026
New Cycle Turning Point
On March 19, 2026, Lei Jun released the new-generation SU7. His speech style shifted from heroic-tragic to calm, and brand strategy shifted from founder personal IP-driven to systemic operations introducing spokespersons and focusing on safety and delivery. However, the launch event heat cooled noticeably compared to the debut generation. Capital markets began scrutinizing the sustainability of the growth narrative, while Xiaomi simultaneously set new targets of delivering 550,000 units in 2026 and investing at least 200 billion RMB in R&D over the next five years.
Turning Points
- In 2021, announcing a stake of all reputation to personally lead car manufacturing, wagering mobile company traffic and user assets in a single stroke on a decade-long new track.
- The late 2023 launch event strategy of discussing technology without quoting prices, pushing pre-launch suspense marketing to internet-wide viral discussion extremes.
- In March 2024, the SU7 launch achieved nearly 90,000 firm orders in a single day, with order volumes instantly turning capacity ramp-up into the company's biggest survival issue.
- In March 2025, following a highway accident, actively scaling down founder exposure and pivoting to a safety narrative, completing a forced transition from personal IP to brand system.
Failures & Pitfalls
- During the early car-building phase amidst the winter of startups, the market generally doubted whether Xiaomi, known for cost-effective smartphones, could build good cars, leading to prolonged depressed stock prices.
- Following the 2024 launch, orders far exceeded capacity, leaving large numbers of users waiting months for delivery. Order-locking and cancellation controversies compounded capacity anxiety, causing Lei Jun to admit he was afraid of selling too well.
- The March 2025 highway accident sparked a trust crisis in intelligent driving assistance, placing simultaneous pressure on the founder's personal reputation and brand safety image.
- The launch event heat for the new-generation SU7 in 2026 cooled noticeably; once the traffic dividend of the first-generation product faded, the brand needed to re-prove its product strength.
关键成功要素
- Using decade-long strategic resolve and substantial hundred-billion-level investments to hedge against the inherent identity uncertainties of cross-border car manufacturing.
- Converting the fan ecosystem and founder personal IP accumulated during the smartphone era into unprecedented low-cost traffic acquisition capabilities within the automotive industry.
- Insisting on self-built factories and full-stack self-research of intelligent technologies, trading a heavy-asset path for long-term control over the supply chain and quality control.
- Focusing on mainstream price segments with two pure electric models, achieving 400,000-unit annual deliveries through ultimate single products rather than a sea-of-models strategy.
- Actively curbing the founder's prominence following trust crises, rebuilding brand credibility through safety and delivery data.
Lessons
- The deciding factor in cross-border car manufacturing is not traffic, but capacity ramp-up and quality control; the higher the traffic, the greater the backlash risk to the manufacturing system.
- Personal IP can ignite the first wave of sales, but safety accidents equally amplify penalties against the brand. A depersonalized brand system must be established in advance.
- Suspense marketing that talks only about technology without quoting prices is only suitable for the first product cycle; subsequent models must rely on genuine delivery reputation and user retention.
- Focusing on a single blockbuster builds mental territory faster than spreading across multiple models, but the life cycle decay of a single blockbuster is also faster, requiring precise generational-upgrade timing.
- The long-termism of high-investment self-research requires continuous blood transfusion from the parent company's core business; cross-border car manufacturing is fundamentally a group-level war of resource attrition.
Core Data
- 初始投资额：10 billion RMB (public data baseline, independent verification pending)
- 未来五年研发投入：200 billion RMB (public data baseline, independent verification pending)
- 起售价：215,900 RMB (public data baseline, independent verification pending)
- 2025年汽车交付量：410,000 units (public data baseline, independent verification pending)
- 2024年首24小时订单量：90,000 units (public data baseline, independent verification pending)
- 2026年交付目标：550,000 units (public data baseline, independent verification pending)
Competitors / Peers
In the 200,000 to 300,000 RMB pure electric sedan market, the Xiaomi SU7 directly benchmarks against the Tesla Model 3 and Zeekr sedan series, both of which possess more mature supply chains and higher gross margin levels. Within the range-extender camp, Li Auto's L series and Aito's M series have captured family users; after Xiaomi's two pure electric models delivered over 410,000 units combined in 2025, they began directly nibbling away at Li Auto's foundational base. Nio focuses on battery swapping and service premiums, Xpeng bets on the intelligent driving label, while BYD suppresses scale through a sea-of-models strategy across all price bands and vertical integration cost advantages. Xiaomi's core differentiator remains extremely low-cost customer acquisition driven by fan traffic, but it lags behind the aforementioned rivals in brand safety reputation and multi-model matrix.