The rapidly growing market for electric vehicles is attracting more and more new players. And if the desire of automakers to enter the electric vehicle market is understandable, then the fact that smartphone manufacturers are interested in this area at first surprised us. One of the first brands involved in the production of mobile electronics, Xiaomi has admitted its interest in the automotive market. Moreover, the Chinese company did not limit itself to talking and made it clear that work on the first Xiaomi electric cars is in full swing.
Xiaomi founder and CEO Lei Jun confirmed that the company is actively developing electric vehicles. According to him, the serial production of the first electric car, developed by a subsidiary of Xiaomi, will start in the first half of 2024. Immediately after this announcement, Xiaomi shares on the stock exchange have risen in price by more than 5% from the previous close.
It should be noted that Xiaomi completed the registration of its new division, which will deal with the production of electric vehicles, in August 2021. In the next 10 years, the company plans to invest about $ 10 billion in a new direction. Xiaomi is now actively recruiting new employees to work in the automotive division and holding meetings with potential suppliers and partners. To date, the company has entered into dozens of cooperation agreements and formed a research and development center of 450 people. True, it is still unknown whether Xiaomi is going to produce electric vehicles on its own or will entrust their assembly to a third-party company from among the existing automakers. The latter option sounds more likely, especially given the complexities of organizing car production.
