Chinese Smartphone Titan Xiaomi Entering the EV Race
Xiaomi, a Chinese smartphone colossus, has announced they are building their own branded electric vehicles (EVs), just like Apple, Huawei, Sony, and Foxconn.
If you’re prepared to lose money, starting a car company is easy. Just ask Tesla. Xiaomi has plenty, enough to sink $10 billion into the venture over the next 10 years.
Xiaomi, the third-largest smartphone maker, is merging automotive, electronics, and information and communication technology with the traditional auto industry model. Xiaomi’s expertise is in manufacturing, hardware-based Internet service, software, and hardware integration. Their appeal in China, brand recognition, and presence in other countries will no doubt help at launch.
Xiaomi’s smartphone brand, POCO, has made its way into 35 markets in the past three years. Xiaomi shipped over 9 million phones worldwide in 2020. The POCO F1 was their first release in 2018, adopted early on by techies and later by the media, achieving over 2.2 million shipments.
Yesterday, Xiaomi released the Mi Mix Fold, a new foldable smartphone. Xiaomi’s entrance in this segment is notable beyond the foldable display. Xiaomi’s new flagship, it has 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. The first camera phone to use their Surge C1 chipset, it’s also the first to use liquid lens technology.
Besides the new smartphone, the company unveiled its new Xiaomi logo, designed by Japanese graphic designer Kenya Hara. Look for Xiaomi’s entrance into the EV segment to intensify the competition within China, as well as elsewhere in the world.
[Images: Xiaomi]
With a father who owned a dealership, I literally grew up in the business. After college, I worked for GM, Nissan and Mazda, writing articles for automotive enthusiast magazines as a side gig. I discovered you could make a living selling ad space at Four Wheeler magazine, before I moved on to selling TV for the National Hot Rod Association. After that, I started Roadhouse, a marketing, advertising and PR firm dedicated to the automotive, outdoor/apparel, and entertainment industries. Through the years, I continued writing, shooting, and editing. It keep things interesting.
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That Mi Mix Fold is a blatant copy of the F-150's new folding shifter, and the new logo is clearly a ripoff of GM's amorphous blob redesign. My advice to both companies: Sue now, while you still can.
I have one of their electric scooters. It seems to be pretty well made.