Just now, Lei Jun responded to everything about Xiaomi's car! Being sanctioned by the United States is just the beginning, test driving more than 170 cars! Also obtained a racing license

On July 19th, Lei Jun's annual speech kicked off at the Shougang Ice Hockey Arena in Beijing, with the theme "Courage," focusing on the three-year journey of Xiaomi's foray into the automotive industry. Xiaomi's car also trended on Weibo.

Questions such as how Xiaomi decided to enter the automotive industry, how it dealt with a $10 billion investment, and why Xiaomi's car does not engage in OEM production were all answered for the first time during this speech.

The enthusiasm at this press conference was no less than that of the Xiaomi SU7 launch event. The two-tiered audience seats at the Shougang Ice Hockey Arena were completely full, with cheers erupting from time to time, and some even exclaimed, "It's lit!"

US Sanctions as the Starting Point for Car Manufacturing

One day in 2021, Lei Jun received a call on his way to work, informing him of Xiaomi being sanctioned by the United States. During a board meeting held to address the issue at the time, someone asked, "If Xiaomi's smartphone business can no longer operate, what will you do with your 30-40 thousand employees?" This became the starting point for Xiaomi's pursuit of diversification through car manufacturing.

After 85 research trips, Li Bin and He Xiaopeng strongly recommended Lei Jun to venture into car manufacturing. "This should be purely for the good of Xiaomi, for my own good," Lei Jun said. Later, Lei Jun's judgment was that the trend of smart electric vehicles is unstoppable. "If we are to manufacture cars, we must have long-term plans and aim to be among the top five globally. Our calculation at the time was that we would need to burn at least $10 billion." Lei Jun stated.

The investment was too substantial to afford losses, so Lei Jun personally took the helm. "If this must be done, and if everyone thinks I am the most suitable, I am willing to step forward. At that time, I only had seven words in my mind: Though a million people may oppose me, I will go ahead."

On March 30, 2021, Xiaomi officially announced its entry into car manufacturing with an initial investment of 10 billion RMB. During the press conference at the time, Lei Jun said, "This is my last entrepreneurial project in my life, and I will stake all my reputation to fight for Xiaomi's car."

"I had mixed feelings during this press conference. Many of the comments on the live streaming platform were 'Let's beat Tesla.'" Lei Jun mentioned at tonight's press conference.

After the launch of the car manufacturing project, whether it was Xiaomi's early entrepreneur Liu Anyu, or Li Tianyuan, who is now settled in Europe doing car design, or Shunwei Capital partner Hu Zhenan, and others, all joined the entrepreneurial journey of Xiaomi's car. "Xiaomi has gathered a group of people who love cars, coming together from all corners of the world," Lei Jun said, noting that the Xiaomi car business department received 380,000 resumes at one point.

For Lei Jun, this is the last entrepreneurial venture after Xiaomi smartphones, and he needs to give it his all. However, unlike the Xiaomi smartphone era, Lei Jun, now in the car manufacturing industry, has to bear the brunt of the responsibility. Since then, Lei Jun has always chosen to stand in the forefront, increasing the exposure and sales of Xiaomi's cars

Why doesn't Xiaomi's car independently finance and go public?

Unlike other new forces in car manufacturing, Xiaomi is taking an independent path that does not rely on external capital. At a press conference tonight, Lei Jun also responded to this.

In April 2021, a group of entrepreneurs visited Xiaomi and asked Lei Jun: Is it too late to make cars now? Lei Jun responded at the time: Intelligence is the soul of cars, and this is just the beginning of the era of electric vehicles. Cars are a hundred-year track, as long as you want to do it, anytime is the best time.

Another question is: Why doesn't Xiaomi's car go public independently? Lei Jun responded: At that time, Xiaomi's car had nothing, but investment institutions gave a valuation of $10 billion. However, after careful consideration, it was believed that by building cars internally at Xiaomi, a large number of talents and technologies could be directly utilized, and only by working together could there be a chance of success. Finally, the decision was made to fund it all by themselves and bear all the risks.

This approach was praised by "half of the car circle." In April 2021, Wang Chuanfu, Li Bin, He Xiaopeng, Li Xiang, and others visited Xiaomi to express their blessings for Xiaomi's car.

Most car companies start with SUVs, but Xiaomi chooses to "take an unconventional route" and start with pure electric sedans, starting with the most difficult category.

At that time, many people @Lei Jun, believing that it was most important to launch the car as soon as possible and not do everything themselves, just find an OEM. But Lei Jun rejected this: "Because I have suffered heavy losses in the past, this time in entrepreneurship, I will not take shortcuts, not acquire, not OEM."

Not OEM means that in the manufacturing process, all core technologies must be done by themselves. "We have made ten times the investment, seriously building a good car. Motor, large die-casting cluster, intelligent driving, battery pack, and other core tracks... Xiaomi has made key investments in all of them," Lei Jun said.

"In this process, we not only exhausted ourselves, but also exhausted our suppliers." Lei Jun once called the chairman of CATL and finally gained understanding.

Lei Jun's driver sits in the front passenger seat

On August 16, 2023, Xiaomi's first trial production car rolled off the line. Behind it was a systematic engineering process including market research, winter testing, summer testing, and more.

Using market research as an example, "I also had a driver at the time, but since I wanted to make cars, my first step was to drive myself, and I even let the driver sit in the front passenger seat," Lei Jun recalled.

For market research, Lei Jun later borrowed a friend's car to drive; visited various brand 4S stores; drove around in Xiaomi's underground garage, borrowing cars that hadn't been driven. He chatted with various car owners, recorded, and drove seriously for two days. Over the years, Lei Jun test drove more than 170 cars.

At the same time, to deepen his understanding of cars, Lei Jun set himself a goal: to become one of the best drivers among domestic car company bosses. So, he made up his mind to start learning racing, not only learning by himself but also taking the Xiaomi management team to learn together, and eventually, he successfully obtained a racing license **

Before the release of Xiaomi SU7, Xiaomi conducted the largest-scale real-road testing in the industry. Some netizens said, "Whether Xiaomi's car can succeed depends on whether the executives dare to drive it themselves." This sentence was passed on to Lei Jun by the engineers, and Lei Jun forwarded it to all the executives. All Xiaomi executives participated in the testing, accumulating over 100,000 kilometers. Lei Jun also participated over 10 times, accumulating over 5,000 kilometers, with the farthest trip being from Beijing to Shanghai by himself.

At the launch event, Lei Jun also demonstrated his drifting skills in a video, stating that this was his "homework" after boasting in a previous live broadcast. The audience cheered loudly, almost deafening.

"Jun Er, stop it"

Before the official release, Xiaomi's car faced a lot of ridicule and continuous questioning. For example, "Apple has been trying to make a car for ten years without success, why does Xiaomi think they can do it in three years?" "Jun Er, stop it, the outside world is full of challenges," and more. The most difficult part was that almost everyone at that time thought that Xiaomi SU7 would not sell well.

Lei Jun recalled that he was indeed worried at that time: afraid that it wouldn't sell, but also worried about not having enough to sell. How many units should we order? The target for Xiaomi SU7 in early 2024 was 76,000 units. "If we can't sell ten thousand units, we would need many football fields for parking, which would be a disaster for the company. But we had no retreat, we could only push forward desperately."

A bigger challenge was pricing. At that time, there were voices in the market suggesting that Xiaomi SU7 should be priced at 149,000 yuan or even 99,000 yuan. Lei Jun believed that an ultra-low price would be like drinking poison to quench thirst. Finally, the Xiaomi SU7 launch event was held on March 28th this year.

Lei Jun admitted today that he was extremely nervous at that time, like a student who had studied hard for ten years finally taking the college entrance exam. It took him over half an hour to gradually relax on stage. Later, after the announcement of 10,000 units sold in 4 minutes, Lei Jun could finally let go of his worries.

At the Xiaomi SU7 launch event in March this year, Lei Jun pioneered a new way of internet marketing in the automotive industry, which mainstream voices believe dealt a blow to traditional car manufacturers' launch events. In the following months, Lei Jun continued to explain, test drive, and recruit people through live broadcasts and other means.

In the process of Lei Jun's internet celebrity-style marketing, there are some details worth noting. For example, someone once commented on his account, "Next time, use the word 'ultimate' less in your events," to which Lei Jun replied, "Got it." There was also a funny song made from Lei Jun's poor English, and he even bought the rights to that song.

This includes details like Lei Jun personally opening the car door for the first car delivery ceremony. All these actions have made Lei Jun a "walking traffic generator."

In his speech tonight, Lei Jun reiterated that Xiaomi SU7's delivery target for this year is a minimum of 100,000 units, striving for 120,000 units. "But we are still far from success, our Long March has just begun. This is the courage of all Xiaomi employees, courage is the greatest anthem of humanity."