Xiaomi, Tesla’s biggest challenger in China, unveils refreshed sedan with higher prices



Xiaomi, one of Tesla’s biggest challengers in mainland China over the past year, has unveiled a refreshed version of its fully electric sedan capable of travelling more than 900km on a single charge, as it seeks to stay ahead of intensifying competition.

Lei Jun, founder and CEO of the smartphone maker and electric vehicle (EV) start-up, said on Wednesday that the updated SU7 – priced higher than existing variants – would demonstrate superior performance to sustain strong sales growth.

“Given the sizzling sales of the SU7, we have been making great efforts to ensure the facelift can also be a success,” he said at a virtual briefing. “We do hope the upgraded SU7 can be good enough to convince the market of its excellent fundamentals.”

The refreshed SU7 starts at 229,900 yuan (US$32,920) in presale – 14,000 yuan, or 6.5 per cent, higher than the version that hit the mainland market in March 2024.

The premium sedan directly takes on Tesla’s Model 3, with the price gap between the two entry-level editions narrowing to 5,600 yuan from 19,600 yuan. The two higher editions of the upgraded SU7 are priced at 259,900 yuan and 309,900 yuan.
The top edition offers a driving range of 902km, compared to 830km for the existing Pro variant. All versions are fitted with a lidar sensor and 4D millimeter-wave radars, whose self-driving systems are powered by advanced chips delivering 700 tera operations per second – a unit of measurement for the trillions of operations it can perform in one second.

“With surging production costs, we cannot offer more features while charging the same prices,” Lei said. “We have already added tens of thousands of yuan worth of extra features. We hope all customers can understand the reasons for the price hikes.”

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