After Mi Robot, a driverless Xiaomi electric car will soon be a reality
Jerrica · Sep 3, 2021 03:51 PM
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It’s official, a Xiaomi car will soon be made and yes, it will carry the Xiaomi name. The smartphone giant established Xiaomi Automobiles Co. Ltd with a registered capital of CNY 10 billion (about RM 6.4 billion).
The announcement was made via Xiaomi Group’s official Weibo page. The post also announced that brand founder Lei Jun will be leading the new Xiaomi Automobiles unit.
The Xiaomi Automobile team
Xiaomi also revealed that the company has received overwhelming support from enthusiasts since it announced that they are stepping into the automotive industry. The company received over 20,000 job applications since March and more are still rolling in.
But unfortunately, Xiaomi Group is well known to operate on a lean team as is obvious with its smartphone and home technology business. So, the group will be forming a team that consists of about only 300 people.
As of yet, the company has not announced where Xiaomi Automobiles will be based. Based on the call for job applications from Lei Jun, the Chinese media are speculating that the HQ will likely be in Beijing.
But they are not ruling out locations like Shanghai, Wuhan, Hefei, and Xi’an just to name a few.
Xiaomi founder Lei Jun announcing the company's intention to build its first car
Xiaomi has been very active in the past five months since it announced its intention to hop into the automotive industry.
Just recently the company made headlines for acquiring Deepmotion, a company that focuses on creating autonomous driving tech. The company also struck a deal with Motorcomm, a core communication chip manufacturer for vehicles.
In other news, Xiaomi also revealed that its first car will skip level 1 and 2 autonomous driving and head straight to level 4 autonomous driving. They’re talking full driverless cars here!
The company has been busy investing in autonomous developers in China since March. And with the acquisition of Deepmotion, we won’t be surprised that the company’s first car would be more advanced than any other car in the industry.
There isn’t a time in memory that doesn’t involve staring at cars. After discovering the excitement of watching Schumacher vs Hakkinen, Formula 1 became a major part of life. The love for cars and F1 ultimately led to a job with CAR Magazine. The untimely death of the magazine meant a hiatus from cars at lifestyle women’s magazine Marie Claire before another opportunity came knocking again.
