ALBAWABA – Chinese smartphone manufacturer and fifth largest in the republic, Xiaomi, has announced that deliveries will start for its first and highly anticipated electric car, the Speed Ultra 7 (SU7), weeks after Apple had reportedly cancelled its decade-long venture aiming for the same goal.
Xiaomi announcement came through a post on Weibo, stating that 59 of its stores across 29 cities nationwide will be taking orders for the vehicle, with an event scheduled on Mar. 28 to celebrate the SU7 launch and reveal its price, causing a 11.34 percent jump in stock price, the company’s biggest to date.
Last December, Xiaomi had first revealed the SU7 with a 871V voltage, 800V silicon carbide high-voltage battery developed in collaboration with CATL, offering up to 1200 kilometers of range, with the ability to go from 0 to 100kph in only 2.78 seconds.
Xiaomi's CEO, Lei Jun, said in December of last year that the company aspires to rank among the top five automakers in the world over the upcoming 15 to 20 years. Furthermore, according to Euro News, he added that in the following ten years, this division of the company is expected to receive investments totaling around $10 billion.
While the global EV market is seeing a downturn, making it a potentially challenging time for Xiaomi to hit the market, its recent development of an operating system that connects its smart phones to various smart home products and to the new car, could potentially leverage the SU7 not only in the EV field but also the Internet of Things and smart devices one.
