On December 25th, the official Weibo account of Xiaomi Auto announced that it has officially started a charging and energy replenishment network cooperation with NIO, Xiaopeng Motors, and Ideal Motors.
At the same time, the topic of # Xiaomi's official announcement of cooperation with NIO # even went viral on Weibo. Xiaomi founder, chairman, and CEO Lei Jun also responded to the collaboration with "Wei Xiaoli".
So, why did Xiaomi choose to hold hands with "Wei Xiaoli"? What impact will it bring to oneself afterwards?
Strong alliance, win-win cooperation
NIO and Xiaopeng have been making efforts to build their own energy replenishment systems and have achieved some success.
NIO's energy replenishment system has always been focused on "rechargeable, replaceable, and upgradable". As of December 24th, NIO has 4204 charging stations, 24694 charging piles, and 1173000+third-party charging piles connected. As of December 19th, in Xiaopeng's charging network layout, there are 1830+self operated stations and 9370+charging piles.
The construction of the energy replenishment system for Ideal Automobile has been steadily advancing, although it has only been over a year. As of December 15th, there are 1226 ideal supercharging stations and 2115 preferred supercharging stations in China.
It is reported that after joining hands with "Weixiaoli", over 14000 NIO charging stations, over 9000 Xiaopeng charging stations, and over 6000 Ideal charging stations have joined Xiaomi's charging map, supporting real-time viewing of dynamic data in the charging map. However, there are still slight differences in the rights of the three companies. Ideal Auto only supports some charging stations that can be charged by scanning the Xiaomi car app, while Xiaopeng charging stations support plug and play charging services.
In March of this year, Lei Jun announced at Xiaomi Auto's press conference that Xiaomi Auto is building its own supercharging network, with the first batch gradually advancing in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou, using a 600kW liquid cooled supercharging solution. In August of this year, Lei Jun also revealed that although Xiaomi has established some charging stations, there are currently no plans for large-scale construction. At that time, he also pointed out that Xiaomi's current top priority is to focus on automobile manufacturing and strive to make the Xiaomi SU7 the electric vehicle with the best compatibility and convenience with public charging stations.
According to Xiaomi's official introduction, the Xiaomi SU7 has been continuously charged more than 70000 times during this pre-test, and has gradually optimized over 500 charging compatibility issues with different manufacturers. It claims to have tested over 200 different models of charging stations, totaling 18900 units, and has achieved compatibility with more than 99% of third-party charging stations. In addition to public charging stations, Xiaomi has also launched home charging stations, which claim to be "one click open cover, plug and charge" and support OTA upgrades.
It is not difficult to see that Xiaomi car owners rely more on public charging networks and home charging stations for energy replenishment. Therefore, cooperation with "Weixiaoli" can not only provide more convenient charging services for Xiaomi car owners, but also attract users to "Weixiaoli" charging stations. No wonder many netizens call this move a "strong alliance" and "win-win cooperation".
Paving the way for Xiaomi YU7?
As the only model of Xiaomi Auto currently available, the Xiaomi SU7 has been steadily increasing in sales since its release. In the past two months, Xiaomi's July sales have reached over 20000 units. With the increasing popularity of Xiaomi SU7, sales may reach a new high, and achieving the annual delivery target of over 130000 units is not a problem. According to reports, due to the high demand for Xiaomi SU7 orders, Xiaomi car owners who place orders now have to patiently wait for 4-5 months before picking up their cars.
Therefore, Xiaomi Auto has announced its energy supplement cooperation with three new car manufacturers, aiming to pave the way for next year's product planning. It is reported that Xiaomi's second car model is an SUV, named "Xiaomi YU7", and is expected to be officially launched in June July 2025. At present, Xiaomi YU7 has been listed in the announcement of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and Xiaomi has also released official pictures.
Lei Jun once explained on Weibo, "Why was it announced so early? We hope that the YU7 test vehicle can remove its heavy disguise as soon as possible, which will help us conduct more comprehensive and detailed long-term large-scale testing to ensure product quality and make better products
Li Xiang, CEO of Ideal Auto, once mentioned that self operated supercharging stations are a necessary condition for selling mid to high end pure electric SUVs, and the quantity level should roughly reach Tesla China's level of over 1900 supercharging stations. Therefore, before expanding its product line and launching the next pure electric model, Ideal Automobile will focus on "doing big things silently" throughout 2024, making the construction of the energy replenishment system a key priority.
Perhaps due to such considerations, Xiaomi Motors has turned its attention to the energy replenishment system. From the currently disclosed information, it can be seen that Xiaomi Auto cannot build a large-scale energy replenishment system in a short period of time. Therefore, choosing to cooperate with "Wei Xiaoli" is the quickest shortcut. With the increasing penetration rate of new energy vehicles, the energy replenishment system has become increasingly important for new energy vehicle companies. Weixiaoli has gone through the 0-1 stage in the construction of its energy supplement system and is gradually transitioning to the 1-100 stage. This time, Xiaomi Motors has once again "stood on the shoulders of giants".
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