Driving Xiaomi's Electric Car: Are we Cooked?

- All right, so there are a lot of hot takes in the tech

world and I see a lot of them in the comment section

and in articles all the time.

And one of the most common ones is, you know,

have you seen these Chinese electric cars?

If they ever came to the US,

they would cook everything that we have here.

They are too good,

they have too much tech and they are too cheap to not dominate everything.

And so I figured,

I should get my hands on one

and actually figure out

if that's true or not.

And yeah, you could say there's a little something to it. (uptempo music) There

are so many crazy things I've learned about this car

while I've been testing it

but let's just start with the basics.

This car here I've been driving for the last two weeks is called the

Xiaomi SU7.

Yeah, that Xiaomi.

So the Xiaomi that makes basically everything in China, tablets, headphones, robot vacuums, printers,

appliances, and smartphones.

And they even refer to the trims of this car as the SU7,

SU7 Pro, SU7 max, and SU7 ultra.

So this here is the SU7 Max

and this retails for about 299,000 Chinese yuan,

which actually converts to about $42,000 US,

which is gonna be a lot more impressive in about five minutes.

So base specs, this is a fully electric four-door sedan,

101 kilowatt hour battery, dual motor all-wheel drive, 673 horsepower,

and 320 miles a range.

Already those are specs on paper on the level of like a Tesla Model

3 performance,

which today costs like $55,000.

Now looking around on the outside of this car,

it looks like a pretty reasonable car.

I think a lot of people would agree.

But that's the thing,

this is Xiaomi we're talking about making this car

and they're not a car company,

which means they don't have any previous designs

that they have to pay homage to

or any traditional lines

and shapes that they have to keep around,

which means a little bit less prestige, yes,

but also a little bit more freedom

because I see them taking stuff from all over the rest of the car

industry in this car.

Like these headlights, for example,

that is very much a McLaren looking headlight

and they have lotus lines on the hood here.

And then as you get back, even more.

Kinda looks like a Porsche Taycan from the side profile, if I'm not crazy.

It has these thin bezels like the Polestar

and then a thicker taillight across the back

which kinda looks maybe like a Lincoln

or some others.

And then there's a fully active wing on the back

that kinda looks like a Mercedes-AMG GT.

All of these are more expensive cars for more premium brands

and so they kinda meld them all together into one car with this kinda

unique purple color that honestly I think looks pretty good

and we're not even on the inside yet.

So the inside here is where they really start to stack the winds.

This is a nice car,

not just in like a nice with an asterisk type of way.

Like oh this is nice for a $45,000 car.

Or oh this is nice for a car I've never heard of.

No this, this is a nice car.

It's got this pretty clean design all around the interior, again,

bringing in inspiration and premium features from a bunch of different places.

Like these are comfortable, heated, and ventilated leather seats.

This heated steering wheel looks

and feels a lot like a Porsche steering wheel to me with the shape

and the simplicity and just a few buttons with stalks at the bottom.

There's a big bright

and automatically aligning HUD in front of me right in front of the road

at all times and that's right above a small display behind the steering wheel

and then a 16-inch primary display in the center.

And then there's storage everywhere.

There's here in the middle between the front seats where they've also cleverly stored

a flashlight powered by the cars battery,

kinda like Rivian.

And believe it or not, a tasteful amount of real hardware controls here.

There's a power on off button right here.

There's temperature controls up and down, fan speed up and down at my fingertips.

You can also put the wing up

or down at the back of the car

and there's a lift height

because there is,

of course, an adjustable air suspension.

Up at the top there's a pair of air-cooled 50 watt wireless chargers

because you know if you got a Xiaomi car you might

as well have a Xiaomi phone with 50 watt wireless charging to match.

So those go up there.

There's also a huge tinted glass panoramic sunroof over my head.

Very nice feature.

The headliner is all Alcantara everywhere

and there are 25 speakers in this car

that sounds really good

and ambient lighting everywhere

that pulses to the bass of your music in the colors of the album

art of the song that's playing 'cause it's connected to the car

and it just knows

that type of thing.

And that's not even mentioning the backseat experience of this car,

which is also really nice.

Those screens for the rear passengers are Xiaomi tablets 'cause of course they are.

I haven't even driven it yet and it's already feeling like a 60,

$65,000 car.

But there are not one

but two really cool features I've never seen in any other car

that are in this one.

So, number one is the software.

The software is so good.

This feels like a preview kind of of like what Apple might've done

if they'd made an Apple car.

I say that because it's super smooth just like a smartphone

but also it's a car made by someone who makes a phone.

And so, the car plugs right into the Xiaomi ecosystem in so many ways.

There's the wireless charger but also wireless screen mirroring.

It connects to various other Xiaomi smart home accessories like security cameras.

You can sign into them with the car with your account.

So, everything from text messages to map directions are all syncing from your phone.

And hey, if all else fails, thankfully as a backup,

this car also happens to have wireless Apple CarPlay and it's nice.

I think it is the biggest,

nicest window of wireless CarPlay I have ever seen in a car.

I think probably my favorite example of the software being incredible in this car

is you see the speaker

and the headrest behind me,

when I'm driving and my phone is paired to the speakers in this car

and I'm navigating,

you know that part where like you're driving

and the music's getting pretty good

and right as the bass is about to drop,

the navigation voice comes on and interrupts it.

That never happens in this car

because it separates out the voice from the navigation

and puts it just in

that speaker behind me

while all of the rest of the music

and the sound in the car stays exactly the same.

So as a driver I hear the voice saying turn left, turn right,

but everything else, including the music for all the passengers stays sick.

That is my favorite software feature I've seen in a car in a while.

So the software being awesome is the one thing,

but the second awesome thing is the modules.

Because this is a modular interior

because hidden around this car are a bunch of various mounting points for modular

accessories.

There's one over here in the corner

and another over here in the center all the way around the back of

this center display.

And so, on these mounting points you can attach various accessories

that Xiaomi makes like this extra speedometer

and trip display or this magnetic car mount in the corner of the car

or this super useful USB hub

that gets full power

and can pass it along through a cable to passengers in the backseat

or wherever they want.

There's also high quality microphones that pair to the car for a karaoke experience,

or even long range walkie-talkies for some reason

if you need to maybe shoot a video with the car

and communicate with the camera car.

What other car does this?

I've never seen the ability to customize exactly how much hardware

or how little hardware you have in the interior layout like Xiaomi does.

I mean they're not a car company clearly,

but they've come up with some really innovative things to make the car uniquely

your own.

You can make it maximalist, you can make it minimalist,

you can do as much

or as little as you want

and that'll of course fluctuate the price you pay

but hey,

that's up to you.

I think that's pretty sick.

All of that is without even mentioning all the little stuff like the active

noise cancellation in here,

the quality of the speakers, the surround sound,

all the other things that the software does really,

really well and I haven't even gotten to driving it yet. (upbeat music) So,

this is obviously a standard issue, four-door electric car, right?

But the superpower of electric cars is that they can have multiple personalities.

That's what makes these interesting.

So, in its default mode, which is comfort mode, it's pretty nice actually.

It rides super soft, it's chill.

The air suspension is actually pretty incredible.

I feel like this is on the same level of absorbing all these bumps

and all these potholes

and the things on the road

as the Lucids that I've driven,

like this is really quite good and it never gets too unsettled.

The accelerator pedal, it's responsive enough, it's not like super twitchy and aggressive.

It's obviously the comfort mode so,

you feel like you have the power you need

but it rolls it on nicely

and eases off when you remove your foot from the pedal.

And what a lot of other EVs don't have is this really high degree

of customization over exactly how

that feels.

Like there is a full on power delivery slider.

You can move it to be a fully rear-wheel drive vehicle all the way

to a fully front-wheel drive vehicle.

And then the lift off region is nice and secure and assuring.

This is a...

You'd never have to take the car out of this mode

if you never wanted to.

This is a very reasonable thing to expect from a four-door electric car.

But there's also a drive mode knob down here.

If I just turn it one notch to the right,

(display chimes softly) everything turns red, the graphics in front of me change.

I get my estimated range and my speed and how much power I'm using.

And then I rotate it again (display chimes softly)

and it's sport plus mode

and there's a G-Force meter now,

and now all of a sudden the accelerator pedal is way more responsive

and twitchy and everything firms up

and the steering is definitely heavier.

So this feels much more like a fun type of drive

and it's not quite on the maxed out level.

Like I know people wanna compare this to Porsche Taycan.

This is not Porsche Taycan levels of sporty,

but it's like one notch below that, which is still really good.

It's got all the EV party tricks, zero to 60 in under three seconds,

launch control, and even a little boost button where

if you press the drive mode button,

(display chimes) you get this crazy graphic on the screen

and then that's all of your power,

which is sick.

So obviously it does great in a straight line with 600 plus horsepower,

but it kinda handles on the same level of Model 3 performance

or BMW i4.

This is a really capable car.

It's kinda like a wolf in sheep's clothes type of car where you see

it on the road

and it doesn't necessarily look like something

that has Porsche 911 Turbo S horsepower,

but it does.

And so yeah, it kinda,

it just gives you this confidence of being able to place the car wherever

you want on the road

and that is the superpower of electric cars.

Plus it's got these active bolsters,

the seats are hugging me when I go around turns.

So when I turn right, the left bolster kinda like hugs,

like catches me a little bit.

This is something those very expensive G wagons have done

and popularized for a

while now.

It's a little weird, not gonna lie,

but it just makes you think it's doing something.

It's also become much more apparent

as I'm driving this car how well built it really is.

It does not feel anything like the $42,000 price tag might suggest.

Like obviously the materials are one thing

and you've got these leathers all around

and the stitching and these different contrasted materials,

but also just in general, like it's quiet in here.

I don't hear motor noise, I don't hear wind very much.

I don't hear other cars or noises around me outside the car.

Like I can verify that there are,

there are noises out there that I'm not hearing.

It's sick.

And then there's the active noise cancellation on top of that.

So, it just feels like a really serene calm experience just

because it's so well-built.

And you might have also noticed the Lidar box right above me on the

top of this car here

because the other button on the steering wheel is Xiaomi's full self-driving,

which doesn't work on every road here in the US

but in China you have Pilot Pro

and Pilot Max and those will take care of almost all of the driving

on almost all of the roads the same way something like a Tesla Model

3 might here in the US.

So I've turned it on on this road,

this is a smaller single lane road

and it's totally fine

and there's all sorts of things like obstacles

that it has to avoid

and it handles that.

It's never really done anything to give me pause

or seem kinda weird

and it's not even designed for these roads

or this market.

So, I imagine in China it's even better than this.

I'm honestly trying to think of like a negative.

Now that I've been living with this car

and I've been driving it for weeks,

I've driven and reviewed many,

many other cars the past couple years and usually the downsides are so obvious,

like, oh, the tech is usually pretty bad, like the software is bad.

But while this is Xiaomi, like they make smartphones,

they make all this tech already, the software's great.

The self-driving works, the cameras are great, the displays are great,

all the tech is there.

And then all the EV fundamentals are also still there.

It has the 300 plus miles of range,

it has the quick charging and it has the split personalities.

It has the super chill,

calm cruiser mode and the 600 horsepower brutal launch control zero to 60 in

2 1/2 seconds sporty mode.

And then on top of all that it's built super well.

Like it has all the sound isolation

and all of the hardware features

and creature comforts and physical buttons

and all the modules

and all this.

And it's like this feels nothing like a $42,000 car,

which I guess conveniently brings me back to the title of this video. (engine

revs) So are we cooked?

Not yet, clearly.

This car is not available here in the US

but you can see how we could be soon.

I genuinely, I'm not exaggerating when I say this,

this is a $42,000 car

that feels like a $75,000 car

if it were made here in the US

and that's the thing that's most impressive about the Xiaomi SU7,

and that's just this one.

So really now that I've gotten to live with this

and drive this here in the US among all the other cars I test,

here's my take.

It's not that there's any sort of crazy bleeding edge tech in this car

that's impossible to replicate.

Obviously the software is really good

and the modularity and some of the features are kinda sick

and we haven't seen them before.

But like if you took this car apart,

you wouldn't find anything inside any like bleeding edge battery tech

or anything that's impossible to replicate.

This is a car made of normal car parts,

but it's the putting them all together in one car that's so impressive.

It's not often you see a car with great software, great features,

great build quality, great versatility, great range,

and a great drive and all stacked together.

Like, that's pretty elite.

There's basically no question in my mind

that if a car like this was available in the US for $42,000

that it would crush,

of course.

The fact that it isn't is of course inherently political

and there's all the tariffs

and import fees and all

that,

that's super variable and we may never get a car like this available in

the US for $42,000,

but Europe will allegedly in 2027.

And I would say

that the competition over there is at least in a little bit of trouble

when that happens.

The idea that the competition is getting stronger

and that cars like this actually exists some other places in the world is

really exciting and heightens the ceiling for all EVs.

It raises the ceiling up for all cars to get better

and more impressive and more complete like this one.

So lesson learned, it's gonna be fascinating to keep an eye on this stuff

in the future.

If you want a more raw like daily living with this vehicle type of

video,

check out the Autofocus Channel where I shot a video on the Xiaomi phone

of the Xiaomi car.

Thanks for watching.

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Peace. (upbeat music)