"What about the car? What about the car? " In the voice of netizens, Lei Jun’s fourth annual speech came to an end. After more than three hours of speech, Lei Jun talked about entrepreneurship from studying, and from dreams to growth. Xiaomi’s folding screen mobile phones, tablet computers, robot dogs and other products took turns to appear, but the Xiaomi car business that the public paid attention to was too "stingy", which was rarely mentioned in this speech.
Image source: Xiaomi
From 2021, Xiaomi announced a high-profile investment of $10 billion in 10 years to build a car. Up to now, the goal of mass production of Xiaomi Automobile in the first half of 2024 may be less than half a year. It stands to reason that Xiaomi automobile should start to build momentum now, but Xiaomi has always maintained a relatively low-key attitude.
We can only piece together the vague figure of Xiaomi car from some sporadic fragments.
Xiaomi car, emerging.
At the media conference call in May this year, Lu Weibing, partner and president of Xiaomi Group, said that Xiaomi’s car has entered the accelerated stage of R&D. Summer and winter tests will be conducted respectively this year, and Xiaomi will be listed in the first half of next year as originally planned.
The appearance of the first model of Xiaomi Automobile is a test for the whole Xiaomi Group. As the time of the big exam approaches, still hiding half her face from us behind her guitar’s Xiaomi automobile gradually unveils its mystery.
In the last link of Lei Jun’s speech, "One More Little Thing", I thought that some eggs of Xiaomi car would be released, but I didn’t expect Xiaomi’s second-generation robot dog "Iron Egg" to appear. Robot dogs and smart cars are not all in common.
Image source: Xiaomi
In fact, for example, Tucki once launched a rideable intelligent robot horse, and Tesla even advertised itself as an artificial intelligence robot company. Optimus, a humanoid robot of Tesla, which has attracted much attention, is expected to conduct a walking test in November this year, and plans to conduct a practical test in the Tesla factory next year.
Lei Jun said that the perception system of Iron Egg is similar to the current smart car perception system, and some AI algorithms adopted by Iron Egg are also of the same origin as the automatic driving algorithm of smart cars. For example, Iron Egg 2 is equipped with 19 cameras and sensors such as lidar.
Based on the current business layout of Xiaomi, we can make some reasonable speculations about the product form of Xiaomi smart electric vehicle.
First, in terms of autonomous driving, "enter the first camp in the autonomous driving industry in 2024 and strive to enter the top five in the world within 15 to 20 years", which is the goal set by Lei Jun for the autonomous driving of Xiaomi Automobile. In August last year, Xiaomi released a demo video of Xiaomi’s self-driving. As far as the video is concerned, it shows that Xiaomi’s self-driving technology has reached L2+’ s assisted driving ability, and it has also performed well in urban assisted driving. It is reported that Xiaomi has invested 3.3 billion yuan in the first phase of autonomous driving.
Xiaomi may adopt a lidar fusion sensing scheme. According to the previously exposed spy photos of Xiaomi cars, there are related components suspected of lidar. According to the network transmission, the new car of Xiaomi’s first model will be based on a hybrid solid-state radar AT128, and several all-solid-state radars will be used as blind-compensating radars.
The second is equipped with MIUI car. There are cases of Huawei and Meizu in the front, and mobile phone manufacturers have shown great advantages when building cars across borders. It seems a matter of course that MIUI gets on the bus, and Xiaomi’s MIUI car version may be an important selling point.
Then there is big model empowerment. At the speech site, Lei Jun revealed that in April 2023, Xiaomi formed a big model team and embraced the big model in an all-round way.
Image source: Xiaomi
The main breakthrough direction of Xiaomi big model technology is lightweight and local deployment. Let users not only have data security, but also have the advanced productivity of large models. Lei Jun revealed that Xiaomi upgraded the big model to Xiao Ai and started the invitation test. Xiaomi has run through the Demo on the mobile phone side, and some scenes of the big model on the mobile phone side are comparable to the cloud.
At present, Baidu, Geely, Guangzhou Automobile, etc. have demonstrated their own large-scale model planning and products, and have made some achievements in the aspects of large-scale model empowering intelligent cockpit voice interaction. The large-scale model has considerable expectations for the improvement of automobile intelligence, and Xiaomi has laid out large models, which may become a plus item for Xiaomi Automobile.
"AI is the future productivity, and it must and must be fully empowered. It is also the bottom track for Xiaomi’s long-term continuous investment." Lei Jun said.
In terms of electrification, there is also some information exposure on the Internet.
A few days ago, a group of photos suspected of Xiaomi car battery pack information circulated. According to the picture information, the battery pack has a capacity of 101kWh and a weight of 642kg. The rated voltage is 726.7V, and the rated capacity is 139Ah. This battery is Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited’s Kirin battery. If it is true, it can be predicted that Xiaomi will be equipped with 800V platform.
Image source: Network
In June 2022, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited released CTP3.0 Kirin battery. According to reports, the system energy density of Kirin battery reaches 255Wh/kg, which can achieve 1000 km battery life; The system integration reached a new high in the world, and the volume utilization rate exceeded 72%. Kirin battery also adopts the battery core large-area cooling technology, which can support 5-minute fast hot start and 10-minute fast charge. In April this year, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited and LI signed a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement, officially announcing that 4C Kirin battery made its world debut as the first ideal pure electric vehicle.
In addition, in this speech, when Lei Jun introduced Xiaomi MIX Fold3, he mentioned that almost all smart electric vehicles are equipped with wireless charging, so Xiaomi MIX Fold 3 will also be equipped with wireless charging. It is reasonable to speculate that Xiaomi car will be equipped with wireless charging function.
Everything is ready, cost-effective as the key link?
The soldiers and horses did not move, and the food and grass went first. Although Xiaomi Automobile has not been officially listed, Xiaomi Group has started intensive preparations in terms of organizational structure adjustment and capacity channel construction.
Since the beginning of this year, there have been a series of changes in high-level positions within Xiaomi, revealing that Xiaomi is preparing for the full sprint. Including Huang Zhenyu, vice president of the automobile department, who is also the general manager of the supply chain department of the automobile department, replacing Li Xiaoshuang, vice president of Xiaomi automobile department who was in charge of the supply chain before, and Li Xiaoshuang will also be the general manager of the marketing department of the automobile department.
In terms of capacity building, according to Xiaomi’s plan, the automobile factory will be built in two phases. The first phase covers an area of nearly 720,000 square meters, with an estimated annual production capacity of 150,000 vehicles. The second phase is planned to start in 2024 and be completed in 2025.
It is reported that the main factory of the first phase of Xiaomi Auto Yizhuang Factory has been completed. However, what is embarrassing is that the current qualification of Xiaomi Automobile is still a mystery. Previously, it was rumored that Xiaomi Automobile will undertake the qualification of Beijing Baowo Automobile Co., Ltd. However, Beijing Baowo Automobile Co., Ltd. applied for cancellation of automobile production qualification on its own in the fourth part of Road Motor Vehicle Production Enterprises and Products (the 371st batch) issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. In what way Xiaomi will land, it is still a problem, but the market generally believes that the qualification of building a car will not be a problem for Xiaomi.
In terms of channel construction, more than 10,000 Xiaomi homes, Xiaomi specialty stores and Xiaomi experience stores have completed comprehensive coverage from first-and second-tier cities to third-and fourth-tier cities. For the delivery center, a person familiar with the matter quoted the feedback from the dealer group. Xiaomi Automobile has started the screening of the delivery center at present. It also revealed that many people from Xiaomi Automobile come from the world and will adopt the operation mode of Xiaomi mobile phone franchise store+delivery center+authorized car body painting center.
Everything is ready, just waiting for the car to go on the market, users are most concerned about the price of Xiaomi’s first model.
At the beginning of January this year, some media broke the news that Xiaomi’s first new car would be divided into two versions. Among them, the low-priced version costs 260,000-300,000 yuan, and the high-priced version costs more than 350,000 yuan. However, in June, Xiao Ai revealed that Xiaomi’s first pure electric vehicle will be divided into standard version and pro version, with prices starting from 149,900 yuan and 179,900 yuan respectively, when answering users’ questions about the configuration and price of Xiaomi’s car. At that time, it caused a heated discussion. Wang Hua, the head of Xiaomi’s public relations, quickly responded that the news was untrue, indicating that the information was a conjecture reported by the media in May 2022, and Xiao Ai directly retrieved the information.
In a previous live broadcast, Lei Jun revealed that the first model will be positioned in the middle and high end, and will use the cutting-edge technology and cutting-edge level at the time of delivery, and the price is likely to be 100,000-300,000 yuan. In fact, if Xiaomi’s first car really uses laser radar, 800V platform, and Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited’s Kirin battery and other product technologies, the price is almost predictable and will not be very cheap.
However, this may not match the expectations of users.
Cost-effective is Xiaomi’s big move. In this annual speech, Lei Jun made it clear that Xiaomi takes cost-effective as the key link. The reason why most users choose Xiaomi electronic products may be because of its extreme cost performance, and not too expensive is a pre-requirement.
For cars, Lei Jun once initiated a Xiaomi car pricing vote. Among the 17,000 people who participated in the voting, the number of people who chose less than 100,000 was the most, followed by 100,000-150,000, and the number of people who chose more than 300,000 was the least.
Undoubtedly, Xiaomi also wants to reverse the image of the group. In the annual speech, Lei Jun himself raised a question: "Some people say that the brand image of Xiaomi has solidified, can it be made into a high-end?" Lei Jun’s response to this is: "We officially set’ high-end’ as the group strategy! It is reported that Xiaomi’s high-end exploration for more than three years has cost tens of billions of investment.
The listing of Xiaomi Automobile may also be a key link to reverse the image of Xiaomi Group, but it may need to bear the impact on sales and profitability.
Burn money, or burn money
In fact, although Xiaomi’s car security work is quite good, it can be seen from all kinds of exposed information that Xiaomi’s car may be close at hand. All this does not come out of thin air, and it will inevitably cost Xiaomi Group a lot of money and energy.
Recently, Shanghai Tongyu Automobile Technology Co., Ltd. has undergone industrial and commercial changes, adding Xiaomi’s Beijing Xiaomi Zhizao Equity Investment Fund Partnership (Limited Partnership) as shareholders. Tongyu Automobile mainly focuses on the research and development and industrialization of key technologies of the next-generation drive-by-wire chassis. The product layout is brake-by-wire system, steering-by-wire system and advanced driver assistance system, involving products such as electro-hydraulic braking system EHB, braking energy recovery system and automatic emergency braking system.
Xiaomi Zhizao Fund, established in September 2021, mainly focuses on the upstream supply chain of new energy vehicles, next-generation information technology, intelligent manufacturing, new materials, consumer electronics and other enterprises related to the company’s industrial chain.
Xiaomi has invested heavily in the industrial chain. In terms of autonomous driving, in August 2021, Xiaomi spent 77.37 million US dollars to acquire all the shares of DeepMotion Technology, an autonomous driving technology company, which mainly provides full-stack software solutions including perception, positioning, planning and control for advanced assisted driving systems and autonomous driving applications. In terms of chips, in September 2021, Xiaomi Changjiang Industry Fund invested in Black Sesame Intelligence. In terms of power batteries, Xiaomi Automobile, a number of battery upstream enterprises such as Weilan New Energy, Zhongchuang Singapore Airlines, Ganfeng Lithium Battery and Honeycomb Energy, has taken shots.
Xiaomi, who is a little late in the game, wants to build a huge automobile production and research system in a short time, and throwing money wildly is the fastest way.
However, Xiaomi’s financial performance is not very optimistic.
This year’s first-quarter financial report of Xiaomi Group shows that the total revenue and adjusted net profit of Qi in the first quarter were RMB 59.5 billion and RMB 3.2 billion respectively. Gross profit was 11.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.8%. R&D expenditure is 4.1 billion yuan, of which innovative business expenses such as smart electric vehicles are 1.1 billion yuan. In 2022, the research and development cost of Xiaomi Automobile was 3.1 billion yuan.
Image source: Xiaomi performance announcement
Last year, Xiaomi achieved a total revenue of 280 billion yuan and an adjusted net profit of 8.5 billion yuan. Both revenue and gross profit declined year-on-year. However, affected by Xiaomi’s efforts to cut costs, Xiaomi’s adjusted net profit turned positive in the first quarter, increasing by 13.1% year-on-year to 3.2 billion yuan. In addition, Xiaomi’s high-end strategy has gradually achieved results. As Xiaomi has increased the proportion of mid-to high-end mobile phone shipments, the Group’s gross profit margin has reached a new high of 19.5%.
Continued blood transfusion for the car-making business will undoubtedly affect Xiaomi’s profit performance. Not only that, Xiaomi also has projects that require a lot of human capital, such as self-developed chips and AI models.
Not long ago, Xiaomi was cheated by India. On June 9, the Indian Law Enforcement Bureau issued a document saying that Xiaomi was suspected of violating India’s Foreign Exchange Control Law and "illegally transferring funds to foreign entities", and the bureau had issued a formal notice to Xiaomi related companies and banks. This means that the millet that India has previously detained totaled 55.51 billion rupees, or nearly 5 billion yuan, or it was squandered. This defeat in India will also affect Xiaomi’s layout at home and abroad.
In this context, Xiaomi Group still hasn’t cut its investment. Lei Jun revealed that Xiaomi Group has laid out 12 technical fields and 99 subdivided tracks, and will invest 100 billion yuan in technology in the next five years.
I have to sigh, boss lei is very angry.
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When talking about the experience of studying at the beginning, Lei Jun shared an experience: No matter what problems you encounter, others may have encountered them, solved them, and even have standard answers. You just need to ask someone.
Although there have been a group of "predecessors" who have opened up a world in the fields of power generation, intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit, there are also a group of "martyrs" who have fallen on the way forward. The development of intelligent electric vehicles is still in an early stage, and there is no absolute winner now. In the second half of intelligence, there is no standard answer for reference.
In today’s smart electric market, it is not easy for Xiaomi to find a broad road. However, let’s end with a sentence from Lei Jun: people are great because of their dreams, and they grow up because of their persistence in their dreams.
Image source: Xiaomi
The important thing is, please let Xiaomi Automobile release more official news and satisfy the public’s curiosity first.
