Source: Finance Association
Author: Tang Zhixiao

Recently, Lei Jun, chairman of the Xiaomi Group, launched a live broadcast on the Douyin platform to chat with netizens about “The Xiaomi SU7 officially went on sale for 20 days”. The number of viewers in the live broadcast was over 100,000, and the total number of likes in the two-hour broadcast was over 180 million.

This live broadcast can be described as Lei Jun's summary of the first phase of the official launch of the Xiaomi car. He said, “It's too early to talk about whether the Xiaomi car will be successful, but the first stage is considered a success. The car construction cycle is quite long. Xiaomi is a long-term company, and now it needs to grasp the quality of cars and serve customers well. The goal of Xiaomi Auto is to become one of the top five car manufacturers in the world by continuously improving its capabilities within a period of 15 to 20 years of struggle.”

In response to netizens' ridicule about him dressing like Jobs and Musk, Lei Jun said, “There are also people who say I imitate Jobs when I make a phone; in fact, I wear engineer clothes, jeans, and shirts. If I imitate, it's more like I can imitate; this is an unreasonable injustice.”

He also added, “Xiaomi is a company with an entire ecosystem of people and cars. Kernel is a technology company that focuses on scientific and technological innovation. More than 10 years ago, I visited Musk and was one of the first Tesla owners. Don't compare me to Musk; I didn't do the exact same thing as him; it's not easy to compare.”

There are various cool articles about Lei Jun posted on the internet, such as the winner in the college entrance examination, the cold 4 billion on his card when his life was low, etc.

Lei Jun smiled and said, “I hope my online friends will help me refute the rumor. First, I'm not the champion in the college entrance examination. I didn't get 700 points, and I didn't have a cold 4 billion in my card when I was at a low point in my life. Like everyone else, I was born in a rural area and relied on diligence, hard work, and the opportunities of this era to get to where I am today. In fact, I think success in life is definitely not a triumph; it still depends on dreams, hard work, and the help of noble people. Without the support of so many rice noodle friends today, I don't believe the Xiaomi SU7 would have been so successful.”

Lei Jun added that Xiaomi will also participate in the Beijing Auto Show and will display models in nine colors at the auto show.

In this live broadcast, Lei Jun also connected with Wei Jun, chairman of Great Wall Motor, to exchange car building experiences. A minute before the broadcast was released, Lei Jun said that he would broadcast more live broadcasts and have “face-to-face” direct communication with netizens. He Xiaopeng and Li Bin will also connect and communicate with He Xiaopeng and Li Bin if he has the chance in the future.

The following are some excerpts and edits from the reporter's answers to netizens' concerns in this live broadcast.

Question: How did Xiaomi build this car in three years? What kind of cars will the V8S be used in?

Lei Jun: This year marks the 14th anniversary of Xiaomi's founding. In the past 14 years, Xiaomi has actually had a very strong accumulation in intelligent manufacturing.

Xiaomi's R&D budget for this year is estimated to be 24 billion yuan. So instead of three years, Xiaomi built the car in three years based on the accumulation of the past 14 years. So don't get me wrong. Look how much R&D expenses we have invested in the past and how many things we have done.

Looking back at the three-year car building process, what do you think we are most powerful about? We built the entire Modena chassis architecture from scratch. However, our V8S engine is actually prepared for the racetrack. The performance will be very strong. It will be launched at the end of this year.

Question: What is the state of the electronic architecture and self-developed chips of Xiaomi cars?

Lei Jun: Xiaomi has adopted a self-developed electronic architecture and has developed several series of chips, including SOC, image processing chips, power management chips, and signal enhancement chips. Xiaomi's self-developed chip team has been making continuous progress to support the Xiaomi Surge OS, the underlying system for Xiaomi cars.

Q: How are recent discussions about the success or failure of Xiaomi cars being responded to?

Lei Jun: The Xiaomi car has been released for 20 days now, and there has been a lot of attention. The Xiaomi SU7 is so popular that I am afraid every day, because after it became too hot, the public beta began. There were no dead spots in 360 degrees, and almost every little detail (was) zoomed in. These 20 days have passed, and I have let go of my nervous mood a little. Under such a high-intensity “horrible person” public inspection, I think the Xiaomi SU7 has carried it.

It's too early to talk about success at this stage, but the first stage is considered a success. The car construction cycle is quite long. Xiaomi is a long-term company, and now it needs to grasp the quality of cars and serve customers well.

I would like to thank all the engineering teams in the Xiaomi Automobile Department for today's results. It is the result of everyone's joint efforts.

Question: Why do female users love Xiaomi cars?

Lei Jun: The proportion of female users of Xiaomi phones has always been very low, and even many women probably don't know about Xiaomi phones. So when I built a Xiaomi car three years ago, my internal requirement was whether we could do every function this time, think about female users. So let's break down the needs of female users into a few points.

The first thing that looks good is king. Be sure to have a look that women really like, a color they really like.

Second, even though we are a C-class car, it looks like a B-class car, just because female car owners find the car easy to control, so we put a lot of effort into turning radius, parking, etc., and the main pain points for women driving, as well as putting emphasis on sun protection. But I really didn't expect this to hurt many female car owners.

Because women play a key role in family car buying decisions, in order to meet the needs of female car owners, many outstanding female designers, product managers, and engineers in the company's design team contributed a large number of suggestions, ultimately making this car a favorite product for women.

Question: Why is the delivery of Xiaomi cars taking longer than expected?

Lei Jun: This is because Xiaomi cars are well prepared, but sales far exceeded expectations, leading to a surge in order volume, which is 3 to 5 times higher than we expected.

Because the car is so big, its manufacturing process is particularly complicated. It has more than 20,000 parts and involves a very large number of suppliers. Moreover, the entire factory is operating according to a very advanced production model, and production is scheduled only after receiving an order.

Xiaomi Auto's colleagues and partners are all very helpful. The standard version and regular edition of Xiaomi Auto were originally planned to be delivered at the end of April, but now the delivery time for the standard version and regular edition has been brought forward by 12 days, and they will continue to push and further improve the delivery process in the future.

Question: What is the price-performance ratio of Xiaomi cars?

Lei Jun: I've never heard of any pure electric cars today that make money. Basically, an outrageous car lost 100,000 yuan. Since most of them are listed companies, you can take a look at the financial reports.

So in an industry with huge losses, people really don't want to talk about cost performance. Every pure electric car has a strong cost performance ratio because they all lose money.

Question: Is Xiaomi considering cooperating with other companies to develop off-road vehicles?

Lei Jun: Xiaomi currently has no plans to develop off-road vehicles. The idea is to focus on improving existing models, and it is more important to cooperate with peers to expand the industry.

Xiaomi's future model plans are confidential. Currently, the company is focusing on refining the Xiaomi SU7 model, and is committed to optimizing and iteratively upgrading the intelligent system.

However, we are developing a complete set of high-performance racing kits to make it easy for civilian cars to safely carry out racing activities on closed tracks. I would also like to emphasize that the Xiaomi SU7 is a very powerful car, so you must pay attention to safety when driving.

Question: How is the development of the Xiaomi SU7 smart driving system?

Lei Jun: I think intelligence is the soul of the whole car, and intelligence also shares corresponding advantages. Three years ago, we began to develop the entire intelligent driving system ourselves.

The intelligent driving system developed by Xiaomi is expected to launch urban NOA tests in ten cities at the end of April this year, open to users at the end of May, and is expected to launch urban NOA nationwide in August.

I require the team to perform an OTA upgrade at least once a month to make car owners feel that the Xiaomi SU7 is getting easier to use, and I also particularly encourage cultivating the Xiaomi team's racing car culture internally. Driven by me, almost 560 of our middle and senior management have racing licenses. We also often host internal contests, and we even have simulators on many of our office floors.

Q: Will the future focus only on the automotive and mobile phone businesses?

Lei Jun: Mobile phones are the foundation of our company's survival, and they are also our core business. I have almost one-third of my energy working on mobile phones. Of course, we also have many executives in our mobile phone business watching.

Editor/Jeffy