Why China's Xiaomi can make an electric car and the apple cannot

After almost a decade of trying, Apple finally renounced its effort to produce an electric car last year, canceling a project that absorbed $ 10 billion.

But last year in China, the electronics manufacturer Xiaomi launched its first electric car after only three years of development and delivered 135,000 vehicles. He has promised to duplicate that number in 2025.

Xiaomi's ability to succeed where Apple could not show how completely China has come to dominate the supply chain of electric vehicles. Chinese companies have dominated the manufacture of electric vehicles. By taking advantage of that infrastructure, Xiaomi was able to obtain components quickly and economically.

More Chinese companies of electric vehicles, including Leapmotor, Li Auto and Group beings, are beginning to make profits after burn cash for years in their intense competition for the world's largest automotive market.

And Xiaomi is not the only Chinese consumer electronics company that has branched in electric vehicles. The Huawei telecommunications giant, which the United States government has attacked with sanctions and legal actions for years, is doing autonomous driving software. Huawei has associated with multiple Chinese car manufacturers, including Group beings and state companies SAIC Motor, Baic and Chery.

Xiaomi has been compared for a long time with Apple. He made bets that his rivals rushed to imitate, such as selling their low -cost and high design phones, mainly online. Its executive director, Lei Jun, even dressed as the co -founder of Apple Steve Jobs, in jeans and a black shirt, for the first release of the Xiaomi phone in 2011.

The first Xiaomi electric car was presented last March: the SU7, a four -door sedan with artificial intelligence characteristics that can help with parking, play films for passengers and the Xiaomi Home Appliances program from the road. Mr. Lei said it looks like a Porsche. But at $ 30,000, it is a quarter of the price.

Xiaomi manufactures all types of electronics, from robot vacuum cleaners to air conditioning, which are connected through their operating system and controlled in their application. SU7 is, in some way, just another device. You can use data collected from other devices on the daily routine of a driver to determine the best time to load car batteries.

“Xiaomi has really begun to infiltrate his home,” said Gary Ng, an economist at Natixis Corporate & Investment Banking. “Everything is linked, and this is something that other companies could not do.”

While the SU7 obtained Xiaomi only a small fraction of the sales of the main manufacturers of China's electric vehicles, places Xiaomi among Chinese companies that are giving a great blow to the long command of foreign car manufacturers on China's market for premium cars. In the year since SU7 went on sale, Porsche deliveries in China fell almost 30 percent.

On Thursday night in Beijing, Xiaomi launched a high -end version, the SU7 Ultra, along with a premium version of its last smartphone. The company organized a striking teaser for the car Running a prototype Around the Nürburgring racing track in Germany, where Xiaomi said, he established a record of “four -door sedan faster.”

Xiaomi also plans to launch a sports utility vehicle, the Yu7, this year, according to regulatory presentations in China.

Chinese companies of electric vehicles have benefited from billions of dollars in government support, which has helped them obtain control of the supply chain to the same minerals within the car batteries. This early advantage helped two Chinese companies, ByD and a contemporary amperexual technology company, known as Catl and added to the Pentagon list of Chinese military companies in January, become the largest electric battery manufacturers in the world.

Xiaomi used this supply chain for its advantage. Their cars contain Byd and Catl batteries. He could quickly start production by taking a Group Beijing factory. Beijing construction workers are working 24 hours in a second factory.

All this manufacturing capacity helps Chinese companies of electric vehicles to move from development to production in much less time than traditional car manufacturers in China, which allows them to bring new models to the market quickly and concentrate on making software that can continually update, said Stephen W. Dyer, head of Asia Automotive in Alixpartners, a consultation.

Intense home competition has pushed many Chinese car manufacturers to flood the world car with affordable electric cars. Last year, Byd sold more than four million new cars worldwide.

It is only a matter of time before Xiaomi's cars are on the road outside of China, said Cui Dongshu, general secretary of the Chinese passenger car association.

The popularity of Xiaomi as manufacturer of all kinds of consumer electronics gave him a deep well of knowledge about the preferences of Chinese consumers. The first day the SU7 were delivered, buyers could go to the Xiaomi app store and obtain accessories to deceive cars, such as analog watches on the board and a row of physical switches that connect to a touch screen panel.

“The brand's strength puts Xiaomi ahead of many of its competitors,” said your le, managing director of the consulting but Auto Insights. “That is what is needed to sell cars worldwide, because it is not just a consumption product, it is an emotional product.”