BEIJING — A decision by the Trump administration to impose sanctions ChinaXiaomi Corp was the catalyst for the company’s decision to launch its first electric carCEO Lei Jun said Friday.
Xiaomi is mainly known for its smartphones and home appliances entered The Chinese electric vehicle market is busy this year, as part of the strategy to diversify the product portfolio.
Lei said Friday at an annual event in Beijing that Xiaomi began considering making an electric car after what he called an “accident,” an announcement made in the final days of the Trump administration that placed the Chinese company on a U.S. sanctions list.
“I got a call from a friend saying we had been sanctioned. It was like a bolt from the blue,” said Lei, who added that Xiaomi called an emergency board meeting that day, marking the start of the development of an EV car.
“If the unexpected US sanctions had not had such a big impact, we would not have rushed into the complex auto industry,” said Lei, who has built a celebrity following in China with his splashy, live-streamed product unveilings.
Friday’s event, where Lei will tout Xiaomi’s attempt to launch an electric car that will sell to buyers Tesla and established luxury brands such as BMW, Audi And Mercedeswas streamed by more than 1.5 million people on WeChat.
Xiaomi challenged the 2021 sanctions in federal court and won a reversal of the action that would have restricted U.S. investment in May of that year. By then, Lei said he had launched development of what would become the SU7, a sporty, Porsche EV that resembles the model and starts under $30,000.
Lei said Xiaomi had rejected a venture capital offer to fund its early EV business, which would have valued the company at $10 billion.
Xiaomi plans to ship at least 100,000 SU7 EVs this year, with a target of 120,000 sales. This is a significant increase from earlier this year, when the company initially set its first-year sales target at 76,000 vehicles when determining its production capacity.
Lei said the company had delivered more than 25,000 electric cars through the end of June and expected to reach its target of 100,000 units in November.
“I owe the accident three years ago,” he said of the sanctions, which prompted the company to diversify amid concerns they would hurt its smartphone business.
The SU7 is only available in China. Lei said his goal was for Xiaomi to become one of the world’s top five automakers.
Donald Trump devoted part of his speech accepting the Republican Party’s nomination for president on Thursday to the EV industry, saying he would roll back strict vehicle regulations. emissions regulations that drive the transition to electric carS.
Trump also said that if elected in November, he would impose tariffs of up to 200% on Chinese electric cars built in Mexico. However, he has also said he would support Chinese investment in factories in the United States.