Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi’s first vehicle model will be a LiDAR-equipped sedan with a price cap above 300,000 yuan ($43,500), local media outlet LatePost reported on Friday.
Xiaomi founder and chairman Lei Jun launched a poll last April in which nearly 70% of participants wanted Xiaomi’s first model to be priced no higher than 150,000 yuan, and 10% wanted prices above 300,000 yuan. The price of the higher-trim version of Xiaomi’s first model has hit the upper limit of consumer expectations, the report said.
Xiaomi may not replicate its low-price strategy in the auto industry as the auto supply chain is more complex than smartphones, and controlling costs has become a challenge for all car companies, the report said. The development of China’s electric vehicle market is accelerating, and Xiaomi, which won’t launch its first model until 2024, will have to come up with a product with enough selling points, and a cheap car will hardly offer enough to be competitive, the report said.
Xiaomi has identified its LiDAR supplier for the first model as Hesai Technology, and will use the latter’s one hybrid solid-state radar, AT128, as the primary radar, and several all-solid-state radars as fill-in radars, the report said.