These are the first pictures of Xiaomi’s 650+ hp EV, the SU7
The first images of Xiaomi’s SU7 EV have been published by a Chinese government regulatory agency, showing off the car in advance of its official public debut. Alongside the images, various specifications in the regulatory filings are being reported, such as the car’s size, weight, power output, manufacturer, and available models at launch.
According to the filing (via CarNewsChina), Xiaomi will not actually be building the car — Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co. (BAIC) will. BAIC is a government-owned Chinese car manufacturer and will be producing the SU7 on contract. This was previously rumored over a year ago, and today’s news confirms it.
Beyond that, we’re getting a sense of where the SU7 will be positioned in the vehicle landscape. With a 118″ wheelbase and fastback roofline (though a faux-hatch trunk), the SU7 seems closest to the Tesla Model S’s packaging, albeit with a slightly longer wheelbase than that car. That’s not very surprising given the extreme popularity of long-wheelbase versions of mid-size luxury sedans in China, the market this car is undoubtedly seeking to court. On overall length, the SU7 is actually just shy of a Model S (a difference of less than 30mm), so the two seem like prime points of comparison.
While we have power specifications and curb weights, range and battery capacity weren’t included in the filings. The single-motor RWD variant of the SU7 will produce around 295 hp and weigh around 4,365 lbs. The premium AWD dual-motor version makes 663 hp and weighs a substantially heftier 4,861 lbs (presumably owing not just to the extra motor but to a larger battery). We do know battery chemistries between the two models are different, with the cheaper car getting a lithium iron phosphate (LFP) pack and the premium trim using nickel manganese cobalt (NMC). Previous leaks indicated an 800-Volt architecture and 100kWh battery, the latter likely referring to the higher-end model.
Based on images from the regulatory filing, we can also see that some trims of the SU7 will feature a rather bulbous lidar array on the roof of the car, presumably to provide driver assistance and autonomy features — though it’s not clear what level of autonomy the SU7 will actually be capable of. The specific trims available at launch are the SU7, SU7 Pro, and SU7 Max, which do make this car sound more like a smartphone than a luxury sedan. There will also apparently be a Founders Edition subvariant (badging is visible on the photos), because of course there will.
Given Xiaomi is a Chinese brand with an ecosystem of products and services largely marketed to Chinese customers, it’s unclear if the company has any plans to sell the SU7 outside its home country. With state-owned BAIC doing Xiaomi’s manufacturing, that does lend credibility to the car launching sooner rather than later, and Xiaomi allegedly wants the car to be available starting in early 2024, with manufacturing beginning before the end of 2023.
Electrek’s take
Hodge-podge of styling elements aside (I see Tesla Model 3, Hyundai Sonata, and Kia Stinger on this car, for a start), the Xiaomi SU7 definitely seems set to raise eyebrows with its available high-output model, lidar-assisted autonomy features, and Xiaomi-developed in-car software. Of course, two big details are omitted in today’s not-leak: Range and pricing.
I’ll personally be curious to see what level of improved integration Xiaomi will be able to provide owners of its smartphones with this car, though I suspect many of those things will only ever be relevant to China-market customers. While Xiaomi does sell phones in a long list of countries around the world, its larger “Mi ecosystem” of products and services is mostly a China play. And with BAIC building the car, it’s unclear just how much of this car will be Xiaomi versus BAIC. Xiaomi has a long history of slapping its name on products the company doesn’t meaningfully contribute to from an engineering and development standpoint. (That’s basically what the “Mi ecosystem” is — white-label branding.)
Given Xiaomi has essentially zero brand recognition in the United States, it seems exceptionally unlikely this car will ever come to the US market. The company has much more popularity in Southeast and Central Asia, but these aren’t regions where luxury EVs are particularly relevant to most consumers. Perhaps its best hope outside Asia, then, is Europe, where Xiaomi is surprisingly dominant in certain countries (e.g., Spain, Denmark, Greece, Belgium). The problem is that dominance leans heavily toward the value segment of the market — not exactly the kind of people who are buying a big, expensive EV. Xiaomi’s brand is built on delivering high value relative to product capability, and that’s far easier to do in the heavily commoditized, high-turnover world of smartphones. There’s only so much you can do to make a full-size EV cost-accessible, and I sincerely doubt Xiaomi and BAIC will be able to wave a magic wand to deliver world-beating pricing (at least outside China).
Perhaps the largest impact a car like the SU7 will have on the broader market is in driving the discussion of technology companies building their own vehicles. Apple has long flirted with the idea of its own car, and with global smartphone growth plateauing, consumer tech brands will likely be eyeing the success of Xiaomi’s outsourced manufacturing arrangement with great interest.
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Powered by tech giant Huawei 5G-Advanced network, a fleet of over 100 Huaneng Ruichi all-electric autonomous haul trucks and heavy equipment assets have been deployed at the Yimin open-pit mine in Inner Mongolia.
With more than 100 units on site, China’s state-backed Huaneng Group officially deployed the world’s largest fleet of unmanned electric mining trucks at the Yimin coal plant in Inner Mongolia this past week. The autonomous trucks use the same Huawei Commercial Vehicle Autonomous Driving Cloud Service (CVADCS) powered by the ame 5G-Advanced (5G-A) network that powers its self-driving car efforts. Huawei says it’s the key to enabling the Yimin mine’s large-scale vehicle-cloud-network synergy.
Huawei is calling the achievement a “world’s first,” saying the new system has improved operator safety at Yimin while setting new benchmarks for AI and autonomous mining.
The autonomous mine project aligns with a broader push by Chinese government and industry to integrate AI and advanced connectivity into traditional industries – an approach we’ve already seen meet with great success in port environments by Hesai and Westwell.
And, if technology like Rocsys’ charging robots take off, these autonomous haul trucks won’t even need anyone to plug them in at the end of their shifts!
For their part, Huaneng Ruichi claims its cabin-less electric offer an industry-leading 90 metric ton rating (that’s about 100 imperial tons) and the ability operate continually in extreme cold temperatures as low as -40° (it’s the same, C or F), while delivering 20% more operational efficiency than a human-driven truck.
The Huawei-issued press release is a bit light on truck specs, but similar 90 tonne electric units claim 350 or 422 kWh LFP battery packs and up to 565 hp from their electric drive motors and some 2,300 Nm (1,700 lb-ft) of tq from 0 rpm.
Huawei executives said the Ruichi trucks reflect the company’s vision for smarter mining operations, with the potential to introduce similar technologies in markets like Africa and Latin America. The 100 asset electric fleet marks the first phase of a plan to deploy 300 autonomous trucks at the Yimin mine by 2028.
Electrek’s Take
From drilling and rigging to heavy haul solutions, companies like Huaneng Group are proving that electric equipment is more than up to the task of moving dirt and pulling stuff out of the ground. At the same time, rising demand for nickel, lithium, and phosphates combined with the natural benefits of electrification are driving the adoption of electric mining machines while a persistent operator shortage is boosting demand for autonomous tech in those machines.
The combined factors listed above are rapidly accelerating the rate at which machines that are already in service are becoming obsolete – and, while some companies are exploring the cost/benefit of converting existing vehicles to electric, the general consensus seems to be that more companies will be be buying more new equipment more often in the years ahead – and more of that equipment will be more and more likely to be autonomous as time goes on.
SOURCES | IMAGES: Huawei, South China Morning Post, and Supply Chain Digital.
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Tesla has started accepting Cybertruck trade-ins, something that wasn’t the case more than a year after deliveries of the electric pickup truck started.
We are starting to see why Tesla didn’t accept its own vehicle as a trade-in: the depreciation is insane.
The Cybertruck has been a commercial flop.
When Tesla started production and deliveries in late 2023, the vehicle was significantly more expensive and had less performance than initially announced.
At one point, Tesla boasted having over 1 million reservations for the electric pickup truck, but only about 40,000 people ended up converting their reservations into orders.
Now, Cybertruck inventory is sitting unsold for months and Tesla is having to offer heavy discounts to move them.
We previously reported that Tesla refused to accept the Cybertruck, its own vehicle, as a trade-in more than a year after starting deliveries.
Tesla didn’t share an explanation at the time, but we assumed that the automaker knew the Cybertruck was depreciating at an incredible rate and didn’t want to be stuck with more trucks than it was already dealing with.
Now, Tesla has started taking Cybertruck trade-ins, at least for the Foundation Series, and it is now providing estimates to Cybertruck owners (via Cybertruck Owners Club):
Tesla sold a brand-new 2024 Cybertruck AWD Foundation Series for $100,000. Now, with only 6,000 miles on the odometer, Tesla is offering $65,400 for it – 34.6% depreciation in just a year.
Pickup trucks generally lose about 20% of their value after a year and 34% after about 3-4 years.
It’s also wroth nothing that Tesla’s online “trade-in estimates” are often higher than the final offer as noted in the footnote o fhte screenshot above.
Electrek’s Take
This is already extremely high depreciation, but Tesla is actually trying to save face with estimates like this one.
As Tesla wouldn’t even accept Cybertruck trade-ins, used car dealers also slowed down their purchases as they also didn’t want to be caught with the trucks sitting on their lots for too long.
On Car Guru, the Cybertruck’s depreciation is actually closer to 45% after a year and that’s more representative of the offers owners should expect from dealers.
That’s entirely Tesla’s fault. The company created no scarcity with the Foundation Series. They built as many as people wanted. In fact, they built too many and ended having to “buff out” the Foundation Series badges on some units to sell them as regular Cybertrucks and as of last month, Tesla still had some Cybertruck Foundations Series in inventory – meaning they have been sitting around for up to 6 months.
Now, Tesla is stuck with thousands of Cybertrucks, early owners are already getting rid of their vehicles at an impressive rate, and the automaker had to slow production to a crawl.
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Australian logistics company Linfox is making big moves to electrify its heavy-duty semi fleet with the addition of thirty new Volvo FH and FM Electric semi trucks as the Swedish brand works to begin production at its Brisbane facility.
Volvo Trucks is expecting to begin full scale production of its FH and FM Electric semi trucks at the Brisbane factory in early 2026, just in time to fill the Linfox order – which happens to be the company’s largest in Australia. So far.
“We are very proud to continue our close partnership with Linfox. The order for 30 Volvo electric trucks is proof of their trust in our company and in zero-emissions transport as a viable solution here and now,” said Roger Alm, President Volvo Trucks. “Our commitment to start building electric trucks in Australia demonstrates our confidence in this technology, and means we can offer an industry-leading range of purpose-built electric trucks all around the world.”
With the production kickoff of electric trucks in Australia, it means Volvo Trucks is building its big HDEVs and prime movers in five countries on three continents. Which, as the company’s electric fleet approaches the 100 millionth mile logged mark, probably means they’re pulling well ahead of some of the other guys.
“Linfox is excited to partner with Volvo in driving the future and leading sustainable logistics in Australia,” explains Peter Fox AM (Member of the Order of Australia), Executive Chairman of Linfox. “Further electrifying our fleet sets the standard for us and our customers and the entire industry.”
Linfox’ latest order includes 29 Volvo FH Electric and one FM Electric semi. The company currently has four electric Volvo trucks in its fleet of 195 semis, with plans to continue to electrify as ICE-powered assets reach retirement.
Electrek’s Take
Now counting miles in operation in the tens of millions and rolling out its third generation of electric semi trucks, Volvo (and, by extension, Mack and Renault) continue to build a huge lead in the commercial trucking space. The competition, meanwhile, seems content to post pictures of its first factory while trucks that have been on order for years still haven’t reached customers.
I can’t see how they (Tesla) catch up from here.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Volvo Trucks.
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