Many folks say electric cars are like washing machines on wheels. Most of the time, that is nonsense. But not with Xiaomi. This Chinese company is, in fact, proud of being a maker of all kinds of consumer electronics, including washers and electric cars. To check it all out, I went to a Xiaomi experience store in the basement of a large shopping mall in Beijing.
The store had a wide range of Xiaomi products on display, some branded Xiaomi and others Xiaomi Mijia. Xiaomi is the brand for cars, phones, computers, and televisions, and Xiaomi Mijia is the brand for washing machines, hair dryers, and kitchen appliances. Consumers can buy all of those products in one store! Let’s start with the main target of my visit, the brand-new SU7 sedan.
The Xiaomi SU7
The Xiaomi SU7 is an electric sedan launched in early 2024. It is a classic 3-box sedan. Most other new Chinese electric ‘sedans’ are 5-door liftbacks. The SU7 is a great-looking machine, low and wide, with short overhangs and wide hips. The chief designer of the SU7 is Li Tianyuan, who previously worked for BMW, where he was responsible for the BMW iX.
The blue car is painted in a color called Bay Blue, with darkened rear windows and black alloy wheels with yellow Brembo brake calipers.
The interior is beautiful, with a minimalist design and light color schemes. It has a large 3-spoke steering wheel with a thick rim, a giant 16.1-inch main screen, a 7.1-inch driver’s display, and a HUD. The armrest area is wide and rather high. In the middle are buttons that arrange the fan speed the volume, and the drive mode, among other functions. Xiaomi says it added these buttons after consumer research. The SU7 is equipped with two 50W wireless smartphone chargers. The dials atop the screen are a factory option.
The trunk space is 622 liters, which is a lot. It also has a 105-liter frunk.
The Bay Blue car is an SU7 Max, the top model, with a dual-motor all-wheel drive powertrain and a pop-up spoiler. The output is 495 kW (673 hp) and 838 Nm. The top speed is 265 km/h and it does o-100 in only 2.78 seconds, making it one of the fastest Chinese electric sedans on the market today. Electricity is stored in a 101 kWh CATL ternary lithium battery. The consumption is 13.7 kWh per 100 kilometers and the range is 800 kilometers. The SU7 has an 800V architecture and charges 30-80% in 19 minutes.
A large display on the wall shows the color and wheel options.
This is the Standard model, with a little lady doing some cleaning with a yellow clot and yellow gloves. She was wearing a mask, which is still quite common in China even today for staff in shops or restaurants. The car she is cleaning is a SU7 Standard Long Range. It has a rear-wheel drive single-motor powertrain with an output of 220 kW (299 hp) and 400 Nm.
In the back of the shop were all Xiaomi’s other products. Xiaomi is a super popular consumer electronics brand in China, so these mall-based shops are usually crowded to the max. I arrived late morning on a Wednesday, and that is a relatively quiet time even by Chinese standards. If you come to this same store in the weekend at 1700, you’ll be overrun! No kidding.
An EV is like a washing machine. Well, here we go. Xiaomi sells many kinds of washing machines and dryers. Some machines combine the two, like the one on the right side.
These are air purifiers. The air quality in Beijing is much better now than it used to be, but most households still have air purifiers for when the pollution levels go up. I used to have a purifier in each room when I lived in Beijing. The worst time was up to 2008, the Olympics helped a lot, and then we had a few years of relatively clean air, and from 2012 to 2016 it was just super evil. This time was called the “airpocolypse”. I was there. I saw it. I kinda loved it. Anyway. Today the air is much cleaner. The reasons: the Beijing municipal government resolutely kicked all polluting industries to Hebei, and the ascend of electric vehicles.
The Xiaomi laptops, smartphones, and the infotainment system in the SU7 all use the same operating system, with the brilliant name HyperOS. The idea is an Ecosystem. Consumers can seamlessly continue working/viewing Xiami’s various products, syncing without a hitch, using Xiaomi’s own Cloud services.
These are Xiaomi robo vacuum cleaners. I have one on every floor of my house, and they are great! They automatically map a floor, with special software, and the machine remembers the layout the next time. So it won’t fall down the stairs.
These are medical appliances, such as a back massager and various blood pressure measuring machines. Does the SU7 Max make you excited? Check your blood pressure right away.
Various cooking and computing products are on display.
The shop was located in the basement of a huge shopping mall. It was not exactly in a prime location, but it was at a crossroads. Nearby were snack bars, fashion shops, and the subway station.
It’s up! The Xiaomi shop was busy but not as busy as the nearby Huawei shop, which offered a similar mix of cars and electronics. More on that in an upcoming post!
Well, then it was time to go. I do love shopping malls. They are so convenient, so clean, and so safe. Yes, shopping malls are the new life in China. Consumers can get everything there, from food to a nail clipper to a brand-new electric car.