Lei Jun is going to challenge the tens of millions level racing car

Author | Zhou Zhiyu

Three years ago, Xiaomi Chairman Lei Jun announced the plan to enter the automotive industry. Netizens jokingly commented in live streams, saying "Beat Tesla", believing that Xiaomi's entry into the automotive industry would be challenging.

Unexpectedly, three years later, what was once considered unimaginable both inside and outside the industry was achieved by Lei Jun. During the annual speech on July 19th, Lei Jun proudly announced, "Xiaomi's first battle in the automotive industry was successful, and Xiaomi has finally entered the game. Of course, success is still far away, and the long journey has just begun."

At the event, Lei Jun set a "small goal" that Xiaomi's cars should become the fastest four-door electric cars on the Nürburgring track within ten years. The Xiaomi SU7 Ultra is set to challenge the non-production lap record at the Nürburgring with a prototype car in October this year, and in 2025, the production car will officially challenge the production lap record at the Nürburgring.

This will put Xiaomi's cars in direct competition with the world's top car manufacturers on the world's most prestigious racing track. Currently, there have been only 7 pure electric cars on the Nürburgring lap record list since 2014, with only 3 being four-door pure electric cars, and the top four on the pure electric list are all multi-million dollar supercars. Xiaomi's cars will compete with these supercars on the track.

Lei Jun's confidence stems from Xiaomi's impressive delivery performance and technological achievements. Xiaomi delivered over ten thousand cars in the third month, and based on the target of delivering 120,000 cars for the whole year, Xiaomi's monthly deliveries in the second half of the year are expected to exceed 15,000 cars, even reaching 20,000 cars. The Xiaomi SU7 is also expected to become the best-selling pure electric sedan priced above 200,000 RMB, surpassing the Model 3.

This achievement has exceeded Lei Jun's expectations. Lei Jun revealed that at the beginning of this year when setting the annual production capacity target and placing orders with suppliers, many suggested a conservative target of 30,000 cars. In the end, the order target for the Xiaomi SU7 was 760,000 cars, which was considered a crazy goal at the time.

However, Lei Jun and the Xiaomi automotive team know that they can only push forward relentlessly, as building cars from scratch has always been a challenging battle.

Lei Jun recalled a day in 2021 when he received a call informing him of the US sanctions against Xiaomi. He quickly convened a board meeting, where someone asked, "What should Xiaomi's 30-40,000 employees do if the Xiaomi smartphone business is no longer viable?" Eventually, Lei Jun considered entering the automotive industry.

After a series of research, including recommendations from Nio Chairman Li Bin and XPeng Chairman He Xiaopeng, Lei Jun was convinced to venture into the automotive industry. Lei Jun also believed that the trend of smart electric vehicles is unstoppable. However, BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu expressed admiration for Xiaomi's courage at the time but also felt anxious for Xiaomi.

Lei Jun revealed that at the beginning of the automotive venture, many venture capital firms offered Xiaomi Automotive a valuation of $10 billion. Lei Jun was tempted, but ultimately he believed that the long production cycle of cars would make it difficult to maintain long-term alignment of opinions between Xiaomi's internal team and investors. Therefore, he decided to build cars within the Xiaomi group. Only by fully committing to building cars can there be a chance of success.

To understand car manufacturing and produce high-quality cars, Lei Jun mentioned that he test drove over 170 cars and even obtained a racing license to deepen his understanding of cars, aspiring to become one of the best car-driving CEOs among domestic car manufacturers At the press conference, Lei Jun also deliberately released a video of himself drifting a car, showing off his racing skills.

Unlike most car manufacturers that start with SUVs, Xiaomi takes a different approach and chooses to start with the most difficult category of pure electric sedans.

After the start of the car manufacturing project, Li Tianyuan, who has already settled in Europe, and Hu Zhenan, a partner at Shunwei Capital, have all invested in the Xiaomi car manufacturing process. Over the past three years, Xiaomi has received over 380,000 resumes, and Lei Jun also issued a "call to heroes" at the press conference, hoping that more talents from the automotive industry will join Xiaomi's car manufacturing business.

Apart from talent, there is also manufacturing technology. Lei Jun pointed out that when Xiaomi started its business 14 years ago, it took a light model, with an unstable foundation, and is still making up for it to this day. Therefore, starting from car manufacturing, Xiaomi decided to start from the core technology, invest tenfold, and seriously build 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."

Even in the process of battery pack development, because it was too troublesome, Lei Jun even called Ningde Times Chairman Zeng Yuqun to apologize, and eventually received Zeng Yuqun's understanding.

From stocking, pricing, to official release, Xiaomi's car has faced many doubts and ridicule over the past three years. Lei Jun even quoted at the press conference, "Apple couldn't make a car in ten years, why can Xiaomi do it in three years?" "Jun Er, stop it, everyone outside is XX," joking about the difficulties he has experienced in the past, but ultimately overcoming them.

Lei Jun is very confident in achieving the goal of delivering 120,000 vehicles this year. He revealed that Xiaomi's car is expected to achieve the annual delivery target of 100,000 vehicles ahead of schedule in November.

With just one car, Xiaomi's car has entered the top ten of the new forces delivery list, and will strive to achieve the goal of delivering 120,000 vehicles throughout the year. Xiaomi has made a good start, and the upcoming competition in Nuobei is just a new beginning, representing Xiaomi's determination to stand on the global stage with its own performance.

Looking further ahead, Xiaomi aims to become one of the top five car manufacturers globally. Lei Jun stated that Xiaomi's car will continue to fight until the final victory