Lei Jun, founder and CEO of Xiaomi, said he was surprised by customers' reactions. He revealed that within 2 minutes of announcing its launch, Xiaomi - also known as one of the world's leading smartphone manufacturers - received more than 196,000 pre-orders and 128,000 pre-booked orders.
Xiaomi's electric vehicle division later said that it had 289,000 pre-orders for the five-seat YU7 model on its official Weibo account, priced from 253,500 yuan (about 35,000 USD), in just the first hour of opening for sale.
According to experts, the Xiaomi YU7 model will be a direct competitor to Tesla's Model Y line. In China, the YU7's selling price is slightly lower than the Model Y.
We believe Xiaomi YU7 is very competitive and could become the best-selling electric vehicle in the entire market, Citic Securities analysts shared.
The most important thing is that the price of the YU7 is slightly lower than the Tesla Model Y, but it offers much better performance. Therefore, we expect YU7 to be able to gain market share from the Model Y, emphasized Jefferies analysts.
The YU7 base version has a notable range of 835 km (519 miles), powered by a large battery made of CATL iron with a capacity of 96.3 kilowatt-hours (kWh), which can be charged from 10% to 80% in 21 minutes. For comparison, the model Y with a rear-wheel drive has an official range of 593 km and another model has a range of 719 km.
Xiaomi has begun to participate in auto production with the SU7 electric car model launched last year. This is one of their steps to promote domestic consumption.
In the first 9 months after its launch, the SU7 model sold 136,854 units. Revenue from smart electric vehicles and new technology products will reach 4.54 billion USD in 2024. The number of Xiaomi SU7 Series vehicles shipped increased sharply in the fourth quarter of 2024, reaching 69,697 products.
