AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)09/01 Report--

On September 1, Lei Jun, chairman of Xiaomi Group, said on Weibo that Xiaomi Automobile was officially registered. The company was named Xiaomi Automobile Co., Ltd. with a registered capital of 10 billion yuan. Lei Jun, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi, served as the legal representative. The official registration of Xiaomi Automobile Company is regarded as the first step for Xiaomi Group to enter the automobile market.

On March 30 this year, Xiaomi Group announced at the press conference that it officially entered the field of car building. It plans to set up a wholly-owned subsidiary responsible for smart electric vehicle business, with an initial investment of RMB 10 billion yuan and an estimated investment of US $10 billion in the next 10 years. Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi Group, will also serve as CEO of smart electric vehicle business. Lei Jun said publicly at the press conference that this was the last major entrepreneurial project in his life and was willing to bet all his reputation and personally lead the team to fight for Xiaomi cars. For the measures that may be encountered on the road to build a car, Lei Jun is even more bluntly "we lose money".

In order to speed up the car, Xiaomi also opened the "buy" mode. Just five days ago, Xiaomi Group announced that it would acquire Deepmotion, an autonomous driving technology company, for $77.37 million, of which $24.4 million would be paid in cash and the rest would be paid by issuing consideration shares. Upon completion of the transaction, Shenzhen Technology will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Xiaomi.

On June 8, domestic lidar start-up Hesai Technology announced the completion of more than $300 million in Series D financing, one of the leading investors is Xiaomi Jiyuan. According to public information, Hesai Technology is a senior lidar unicorn in China, with deep accumulation in the bottom technology of lidar, core components, photoelectric chips, vehicle regulation-level design process and automatic production, functional safety, active anti-interference technology and perception ability based on deep learning.

In addition, Xiaomi officials revealed that in the five months after Xiaomi Group announced the car, Xiaomi team conducted a large number of user research and industry chain inspection, and conducted in-depth exchanges with more than 10 peers and dozens of industrial partners.

At present, Xiaomi Group's car-building project is in full swing and begins to accelerate the layout of smart car-related technologies. However, since Xiaomi announced the car so far, it is still unknown how it will build the car, but from the available information, Xiaomi obviously wants to have more rights in building the car.

Earlier, China Evergrande issued an announcement saying that the Company was contacting several potential independent third-party investors to discuss the sale of some of the Company's assets, including but not limited to the sale of some interests in China Evergrande New Energy Automobile Group Co., Ltd. and Evergrande Property Group Co., Ltd., listed subsidiaries of the Company. At that time, some media reported that "China Evergrande is negotiating with Xiaomi Group to sell 65% of Evergrande Automobile", but the negotiations are still in the early stage and other variables are not excluded. In response to this news, Evergrande Group issued a statement in response to "Evergrande Automobile has had preliminary exchanges with Xiaomi Group during the introduction of strategic shareholders, but has not conducted in-depth negotiations." A spokesman for Xiaomi said: "So far Xiaomi Group has indeed contacted various car-building teams for communication and negotiation, but the Group has not made any resolution of cooperation intention."

As for the details of car building, Lei Jun once revealed in the live broadcast that Xiaomi's first model will be positioned at the middle and high end, and will certainly represent the cutting-edge technology and cutting-edge level at the time of listing, and the price is likely to be between 100,000 yuan and 300,000 yuan. In addition, specific models are currently being selected among cars and SUVs and have not yet been finalized. Lei Jun also said,"Xiaomi car may be available in three years."

Xiaomi was also looked down upon by many people when it entered the mobile phone industry at the beginning, but it has become the leader in the mobile phone market at present. It is unknown whether Lei Jun can successfully start a business again and realize his car dream. However, from the perspective of the general environment, the new car-making forces and traditional automobile enterprises are accelerating their onslaught. The times are developing and the market is changing. If Xiaomi's products will not be available until three years later, it may be more solid for Xiaomi Automobile, but the competition in the market will undoubtedly be infinitely magnified.

Welcome to subscribe to the WeChat public account "Automotive Industry Focus" to get the first-hand insider information on the automotive industry and talk about things in the automotive circle. Welcome to break the news! WeChat ID autoWechat