Discussion

Xiaomi launches next-gen SU7 with 902 km range and LiDAR, still undercuts Tesla

MrVitaliy: Interesting that they prominently feature Lidar as an upgrade over whatever Tesla has. Sheds some light on the whole drama with lidar vs camera in self-driving.

dyauspitr: That’s wild with that range (560 miles) it probably gets atleast 300 miles in the worst case scenario. That’s game over for ICE. What a dream. I wish we could have them in the US but my patriotism also tells me that would be the death of almost all US auto companies.

hangonhn: [delayed]

Aurornis: The range is Chinese CLTC range, which is a more generous rating than the US range ratings.It's an impressive range number, but don't try to compare it directly to range numbers for other EVs.The current gen SU7 is available with an 830km CLTC range. If you drive one on real roads, you will not get 830km of range. :)

woleium: what will you get?

knownastron: Chinese EV companies are heavily subsidized by the Chinese government. These price comparisons to Tesla are good for generating catchy headlines but not useful without that context.

knownastron: I believe they'd be able to sell their vehicles in the US if they were willing to build it here (or Mexico/Canada due to USMA).If that were the case they wouldn't have the cheap Chinese labor and I doubt the Chinese government would continue to subsidize US build vehicles for the US market.It'd still be a compelling vehicle but it wouldn't be starting at $33k.

hangonhn: There's a non-zero possibility of that actually happening. It's already happening in Europe. Trump has mentioned the idea of a JV with Chinese companies. It is possible for this to happen in the upcoming Trump-Xi meeting. Chinese companies have started pursuing more foreign investments as a way to avoid "involution" -- fierce and unprofitable domestic competition. Their profit margins when going aboard is considerably better than at home. Maybe it won't be $33k but it might be $45k, which for a car with those kinds of specs, it would be a steal. China's EV advantage doesn't come just from labor costs but also from vertical integration of the entire supply chain. The mining stage is pretty low margin but China does it because it enables the next stage, which is batteries where profits are better, and then you get to even more profitable stage with cars, etc.

Aurornis: The current gen SU7 is already available with an 830km CLTC range but doesn't actually get that range in real world driving.This is about 9% better, so you could take the current real-world range and increase it by 9% and probably get a decent estimate for the normal driving condition range.You will not get 560 miles of range out of this vehicle. The typical use is probably closer to your initial worst case guess at around 350-400 miles if I had to guess. Worst case scenario would be even worse than that. The numbers are good, but they're not in a completely different league

dyauspitr: It is in a completely different league as soon as you get 250 miles+ in the worst case scenario. I have an EV and 300 miles per charge is amazing. No American companies offer this right now.

tzs: BYD was planning to do that, but Trump said he'd put 100-200% tariffs on Chinese cars made in Mexico and BYD cancelled those plans.

tzs: > I wish we could have them in the US but my patriotism also tells me that would be the death of almost all US auto companies.As an American it is not clear to me that I should care about US auto companies. I care about US auto workers but if they are working at a factory in the US owned by a non-US company making that company's cars that seems like it can take care of the workers.Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Kia, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Nissan, Subaru, and Mazda all build cars in the US with US workers. Why not add some Chinese companies?If there is a good reason to keep the big American companies around pass a law that makes any new non-US auto plants here be a joint venture with a big American company, with the American company having a minority ownership and getting a license to make their own version in their own factories of the cars made in the joint venture factory.

torginus: I wouldn't encourage that and I don't think it will be necessary. In Europe, most Chinese brands aren't selling exactly well, while domestic manufacturers really sped up their timelines and pushed for competitive pricing, so generally I don't think there's much of a demand for Chinese EVs, except for the genuinely nice brands, like XPeng and Nio.There's also the issue, it that in most places in Europe outside of Scandinavia, the charger infrastructure is lacking, and regular people are quite rightly averse of getting an EV if you step out of the tech bubble.I have a friend who's a high-level manager in automotive retail, and he said he thinks Chinese EVs will be like Chinese smartphones - yes they are nice, and cheaper, but still the market looks like 70% of it is controlled by Apple/Samsung, and the rest of the manufacturers fight over what's left

cpursley: And Mexican labor at this point is cheaper than Chinese. Makes sense to me.

cpursley: The only way to get American auto manufacturers to step up their game is completion. Worked when the Japanese cars came, American car quality improved dramatically in response because it had to.