Introduction
Recently, Xiaomi’s car-making business has made new progress! Following the registration of Xiaomi Automobile Co., Ltd. in September, Xiaomi has now registered its second car company, Xiaomi Auto Technology Co., Ltd. According to the display on the Qi Cha Cha app, on November 18th, Xiaomi Auto Technology Co., Ltd was established, with Lei Jun as its legal representative and a registered capital of 1 billion RMB. Its business scope includes the manufacture of new energy vehicles, technology development, and the registered address is in Beijing.
Second Car Company, Xiaomi Auto Progress Ahead of Schedule
As can be seen, Xiaomi’s second car company, compared to the first Xiaomi Automobile Co., Ltd. has the words “auto technology” in its name. Lei Jun is still the legal representative of Xiaomi Auto Technology Co., Ltd, and the registered capital is significantly lower than that of the first company, at only 1 billion RMB. The overall business scope includes new energy vehicle manufacturing, technical development, and so on. Of course, the registered address is still in Beijing, indicating that Xiaomi Auto will continue to focus on building factories in Beijing in the future.
Looking at the business scope of Xiaomi Auto Technology Co., Ltd, this company and the previously registered company will form a complementary relationship: Xiaomi Automobile Co., Ltd will focus on vehicle production, while Xiaomi Auto Technology Co., Ltd will primarily address patent accumulation and exchange, removing barriers related to related patent technology issues for Xiaomi Auto. This is somewhat similar to the relationship between Xiaomi Technology Co., Ltd and Xiaomi Mobile Software Co., Ltd. The first car company of Xiaomi is mainly a manufacturing factory, which means it is the mother body of research and development center. And this second company is mainly for intelligent driving, chip research, and exploration of future development. The two companies will operate independently in the later stage, and theoretically do not interfere with each other.
On October 19th, Lei Jun once again publicly stated that Xiaomi’s car-making business has made faster progress than he expected, and is expected to start mass production in the first half of 2024, which is roughly consistent with his previous statement of “seeing Xiaomi’s first car in three years”. The official establishment of Xiaomi’s second car company also indicates that Lei Jun’s statement is not unfounded. Xiaomi’s car-making rhythm is intensively preparing for launch, and we believe that the public and young people are looking forward to seeing the first Xiaomi car on time.
Constant Action Makes Xiaomi the “Top Tier” of the Car-Making Industry.Since Xiaomi announced its entry into the automotive field in April, every related statement made by Mr. Lei Jun, founder of Xiaomi, has been amplified by the media, and every move made by Xiaomi’s automotive division has been analyzed in detail. This demonstrates that Xiaomi is a top player in the automotive industry in terms of fame, and the public is eager to see whether Xiaomi can replicate the miracle it created in the smartphone industry in the field of new energy vehicles.
Xiaomi has indeed lived up to expectations since its official announcement, and its progress in the automotive industry has been proceeding at full speed. From an internal perspective, on the day of its registration, Xiaomi shared a team photo consisting of 17 core members, including Mr. Lei Jun, CFO Mr. Lin Shiwei, co-founders Mr. Liu De and Mr. Hong Feng, Group President Mr. Wang Xiang, and SVP Mr. Lu Weibing. All of them have played important roles in Xiaomi’s past business, but only one of them is a former senior designer from BMW Group with a real background in the automotive industry.
Externally, Xiaomi’s recruitment efforts are also in full swing. In addition to Mr. Lei Jun’s personal recruitment ad on Weibo, which aims to recruit 500 technical personnel for Xiaomi’s self-developed Level 4 smart driving ability in the automotive autonomy department, many recruitment platforms and Xiaomi’s official website have seen the company’s urgent need for automobile talents. According to media reports, Xiaomi’s automobile manufacturing has already shown a fierce competition scene of 20,000 candidates competing for more than 300 positions. Talent from traditional automotive brands’ technology departments and autonomous driving technology suppliers are the most interested in joining Xiaomi.
In addition to recruiting talents, since the first half of this year, Xiaomi has also laid out the upstream and downstream of the entire automotive industry chain through acquisitions or investments in multiple companies, including the RMB 500 million acquisition of Deep Motion (Shundo Technology), an autonomous driving company, as well as ZongMu Technology, HeSaige Technology, Geometry Partner, iParking, and Black Sesame. Based on the technical strengths of each company, Xiaomi has completed the construction of the chain from sensors, autonomous driving software algorithms to automatic parking.
All these moves not only convey the latest progress of Xiaomi’s automotive manufacturing to the public but also provide insight into Xiaomi’s overall strategy for automotive manufacturing. For Xiaomi, which started late in the field of automobile manufacturing, how to overtake on the curve has become a top priority on its road to auto manufacturing. The strong customer base and reputation accumulated by Xiaomi in the field of smartphones have also provided great impetus for its auto manufacturing journey.
The road to automotive manufacturing is long and arduous.Since Lei Jun announced in a speech about creating cars that this is his last major entrepreneurial project in his life, the public has been moved by his determination. As an ordinary person from humble beginnings, Lei Jun has worked hard to gradually bring Xiaomi to the world’s enterprise stage, and has been greatly loved by young people for his pursuit of the ultimate cost performance. Despite his success, Lei Jun did not enjoy his achievements and instead started over by venturing into an area he had never set foot in before, requiring great courage.
Xiaomi’s foray into car manufacturing is just beginning and is still in its early stages. In public, Lei Jun stated that entering the automotive industry is not for showboating. He believes that electric cars have already transformed from a mechanical industry to an information industry, and that since other peers are already doing it, he believes Xiaomi must do it too in order to avoid being eliminated. Moreover, offering a full range of smart living products, including smartphones, smart homes, and smart offices, Xiaomi has a fully integrated smart ecosystem with the potential for strong expansion if they integrate well with electric cars.
For Xiaomi, car manufacturing is still in its early stages, with tasks such as building a team and defining products being their current main focus. Xiaomi still has a long way to go on the road to car manufacturing.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.