Xiaomi Auto’s First Prototype to Be Unveiled in Q3
Chinese media outlet CNMO learned on Monday from Luo Baojun, general manager of Xiaomi‘s Beijing-Tianjin Branch, said that the technology firm’s first prototype car will be unveiled in the third quarter of this year. The Xiaomi executive added that “the new car will go beyond everyone’s imagination.”
Luo revealed in an interview, “It is not accurate to say that a smartphone represents a mobile internet, because it can’t move, but a car can. The last piece of the closed-loop formed by Xiaomi is a new energy vehicle. In the third quarter of this year, you can see the first prototype car, which will definitely go beyond everyone’s imagination.”
Xiaomi has made many moves since it officially announced its starting a car-building business in March last year. On September 1, 2021, Xiaomi announced that “Xiaomi‘s auto unit officially completed the industrial and commercial registration, the company is named Xiaomi EV, with a registered capital of 10 billion yuan ($1.57 billion). Lei Jun, founder, Chairman and CEO of Xiaomi, personally served as the legal representative the new company.”
Last November, Xiaomi signed a cooperation with the government of Beijing’s Yizhuang district. Under the arrangement, the company will build a complete vehicle factory in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area (BDA) in two phases. The cumulative annual output of the factory is expected to be 300,000 vehicles, and the production capacity of Phase I and Phase II is 150,000 vehicles. In 2024, the first car of Xiaomi EV will be produced by the the assembly line in the BDA and will start mass production.
SEE ALSO: Xiaomi Acquires an Autonomous Driving Technology Company, as Industry Competition Heats Up
This month, Xiaomi obtained a stake in AI Micron, a domestic smart car chip manufacturer based in Shanghai. According to Tianyancha, a commercial inquiry platform in China, the shareholders of the company added Hubei Xiaomi Changjiang Industrial Investment Fund Management Co., Ltd., which currently holds 5.7253% of shares.
According to a financial report released by Xiaomi on November 23, 2021, the number of R&D personnel within the company currently totals 13,919, accounting for more than 44% of the total number of employees. Among them, Xiaomi EV has more than 500 people on its team.
