(TMTPOST)—Xiaomi announced late Thursday that the SU7 would be priced at about $4,000 less than Tesla’s Model 3, and claimed the new car would provide a longer driving range.
As of Tuesday morning, Xiaomi’s online store showed the wait time of at least five months for a basic version of the SU7. The company had said it received orders for more than 50,000 cars in the 27 minutes since sales started last Thursday.
Chinese electric vehicle (EV) startups Xpeng and Nio on Monday announced car purchase subsidies of 20,000 yuan ($2,800) and 10,000 yuan each, respectively. Nio said the promotional deal followed the Chinese government’s new policy to promote consumption with trade-ins. Weltmeister's new M7 offers a direct price cut of 20,000 yuan, and certain models from Geely provide a maximum discount of 53,000 yuan for trade-ins.
The pricing of Xiaomi SU7 must make consumers recognize the sincerity of Xiaomi, and at the same time, the losses must be bearable for the company, said Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun.
Lei even admitted that the starting price of 215,900 yuan was set just before the press conference. This shows, to some extent, anxiety about the future market performance of Xiaomi SU7.
The price reductions come as growth of new energy vehicles in the world’s largest auto market shows signs of slowing. Penetration of battery and hybrid-powered passenger cars has surpassed more than one third of new cars sold in China, according to the China Passenger Car Association.
Notably, just as many car companies have joined this round of "discount war," Tesla is a contrarian. Instead of introducing discount policies, it has surprised everyone by raising prices by 5,000 yuan.
On Monday, Tesla China hiked the price of the Model Y to 263,900 yuan, the long-range version to 304,900 yuan, and the high-performance version to 368,900 yuan, all of which increased by 5,000 yuan.
Lei once compared the Xiaomi SU7 with Tesla Model 3 from multiple angles such as sun protection, research and development, and detailed configuration, claiming that most indicators surpassed Tesla Model 3.
In response, Musk said on social media platform X, "The right way to grade any technology is not comparing it to competitors (too easy), but comparing it to the limit of physics.”