4/15/2024

Xiaomi SU 7 versus European 'Toy' cars

 

10 min of test drive.

 BYD is flooding the world with its range of EVs, from as low as US$10,000 one could buy a BYD. BYD has dethroned Tesla as the most salable car in the world, bestest in terms of value and technology. Tesla has acknowledged that BYD, actually Chinese EVs, are its biggest competitors. For that, Tesla has cut the prices of its cars several times just to compete in the China market.

What is devastating to Tesla is the Xiaomi SU7. This car stormed into the China market, selling 89.000 units in 24 hours, pulling all the customers from other car showrooms. It was a frightening sight and experience, no more customers, everyone turning up squeezing in Xiaomi's showroom. And Xiaomi was actually a mobile phone manufacturer. It took Xiaomi 3 years flat to turn out this miraculous super car.

Xiaomi SU7 can travel 800km in one full charge and clock 2.78 sec from 0 to 100kph. This latter number beats many European big name sports cars like Lamborghini, Ferrari, Porsche, McLaren, etc etc. Not only Musk's Tesla is now in trouble. All the big names in sports cars are in trouble. How are they going to outrun and compete with the Xiaomi SU7 that costs a fraction of the prices of these sports cars, affectionately called 'toy' cars for the rich and famous. Now, with Xiaomi's specs, these famous brand name cars are going to really turn into toy cars. They cannot outrun the Xiaomi SU7 priced at around US$30,000.

Who would want to pay hundreds of thousands for toy cars that are slower than a US$30,000 Xiaomi SU7? Expensive toy cars are meant to be fast, not slow, unable to catch the back view of the SU7. Additionally, 800km per charge is far more than the average of 500km to 600km of most European EVs. And it can self park.

The Xiaomi SU7 is going disrupt the whole expensive sports cars market for good. This is another Chinese innovation that the West would find hard to compete and match.

PS. China also has Huawei's Avatr 11 and 12, and Geely's Zeekr 007, all equally impressive.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Huawei is also entering the EV market with its own EVs. According to Kevin Walmsley on 'Inside China Business', it is much easier for companies in electronics like Huawei and Xiaomi, to diverge resources into making EVs than for ICE vehicle manufacturers going into EVs. Thus, we can see the slow and late take up of ICE vehicle makers moving into EVs without the corresponding supply chain. Mastering the electronics of EVs is a bigger problem for them than companies like Huawei and Xiaomi. To them it is a just a piece of cake, with all the supply chain at their doorstep in China.

Even Tesla is finding the competition too hot and now cutting staff due to falling sales. Apple was also reported to have tried to dabble with EVs for over 20 years but pulled out knowing that China controls all the raw materials and supply chains needed to support such a move, which Apple does not have, short of building factories in China to compete with the likes of BYD and NIO among others.

As EV makers keep innovating, such cars may not even need recharging if they exceed the mileage of their battery range when travelling long distances. This is a problem often put up against the use of EVs. EV makers are now using the idea of 'battery swapping' stations that will alleviate the problem of time-consuming charging and inability to find charging stations. Moreover, charging stations require the laying of electric cables to put them up. Battery swapping requires only minutes, and I believe EV makers will make the swapping as easy as changing the battery of an ICE vehicle.

NIO has more than 2200 of such battery swap stations now in mainland China and around the world and expanding to over 4000 by 2025.

Anonymous said...

This SU7 is a quarter of a Porsche price

With more gadgets & functionalities

Now who is stupid enough to buy a Porsche, just because its German made.

Anonymous said...

The USA and the West are now up in arms against Chinese EVs, erecting hurdles, investigating claims of subsidies, perhaps inventing narratives that BYD and other Chinese automakers have connection to the CCP.

When even Tesla is now feeling the heat of the competition, one can only expect further demonisation leading to a complete ban on Chinese EVs, both in the USA and Europe.

Sad to say, this is also the same tactic being used against Donald Trump, using all the weapons at the disposal of the Democratic Party and inventing all the accusations to make sure Trump is buried for good.

When external threats cannot bring the USA down, with its military power, perhaps internal karmic forces are helping to bring about the decline, for the good of humankind.

Anonymous said...

One wonder why sinkieland is so slow in implementing EV island wide? Since it like to talk about climate change, why not mandate all buses to be EV. I suspect the MIW actually hack care about climate, they just want to make more $$ selling oil, built big air-con structure (jewel/garden by the bay/shopping mall) to consume more energy. Best of all, increase population to make sinkieland more Hot...more people fart, more hot air we have..

Anonymous said...

That must also be a China threat in the minds of the sick.

So, is the investigation going to mean these athletes will be banned from the Olympics are Global marathons? I am sure they will be.

By the way, it was reported that Malaysia was offered US$120 million to host the Commonwealth Games, and Malaysia still declined.

I believe they have not yet found a country willing to host the games, with Glasgow trotted out as a fallback just in case.

Anonymous said...

Who would want to buy a Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche or whatever when you can buy a SU7 with better or comparable performance for a fraction of the price?

Anonymous said...

When these companies go broke, China can buy just their names, put in EV engines and sell them at lower prices to the toy cars lovers.