As well as announcing the official registration of Xiaomi EV, Inc., the smartphone giant has confirmed that it has “entered a substantial development phase” in producing its first autonomous car.
Back in March, CEO Lei Jun announced Xiaomi’s commitment to invest US$10 billion into EV development over the nexts decade, with an initial investment of around US$1.5 billion.
The company has hired around 300 employees for its electric vehicle venture, and is said to be “still expanding rapidly”.
To that end, on August 25, Xiaomi announced the acquisition of the Beijing-based self-driving technology start-up Deepmotion. It’s just one of numerous deals Xiaomi has been striking within the automotive industry in recent months.
Xiaomi’s fortunes appears to be on a steep upward curve. It reported record revenue in its Q2 earnings call, has displaced its major local rival Huawei, and has been vying with Samsung for the title of world’s biggest smartphone maker.
Perhaps as a sign of Xiaomi’s growing confidence and brand awareness, the company recently announced that it would be leaning more on its name in future phone releases.
With that said, Xiaomi is arriving late to the industry, and has it all to do. Tesla is the go to name in electric vehicle game, while key tech rivals such as Google and Apple have been working on self-driving cars for years.
However, with this set to be the last major venture of Xiaomi founder and CEO Lei Jun, you can bet that Xiaomi EV means business.
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