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author | Ge Bangning

edit | Li Guozheng

Production|Bangning Studio (gbngzs)

On April 6, 2010, an ordinary day, 14 people gathered in Yingu Building, north of Baofu Temple Bridge, Zhongguancun, Beijing, and drank a bowl of millet porridge. Then a startup company named Xiaomi came into being. But at that time, no one expected that this technology company would become an aggressive rival in the automotive industry in the future.

Ten years later, Xiaomi's revenue reached 245.9 billion yuan, and it entered the Fortune Global 500 for two consecutive years. Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi Group, held his first public speech in his life, establishing three major strategies for the new decade - re-entrepreneurship, Internet + manufacturing, and steady progress.

Restarting a business - the first major strategic decision of the new decade is to enter the smart electric vehicle industry. On the evening of March 30, 2021, Lei Jun made a solemn vow at the Xiaomi Spring New Product Launch Conference: "I am willing to bet on my entire reputation and go into battle again to serveXiaomi MotorsAnd fight. "

Since that day that made Xiaomi people and Mi fans excited, the story of Xiaomi's car manufacturing has been unfolding continuously - although the process is full of ups and downs, the result is almost no suspense.

Three years later, in March 2024, Xiaomi's first car productSU7After the release, it quickly set a record of 100,000 units sold in 100 days - it is hard to remember which new car company has won such an honor. But this is only part of the miracle. The other part is that it is expected to deliver 120,000 units throughout the year - no one knows what miracles this new car company will create if it is not restricted by production capacity?

Xiaomi Motors won the first battle. Beyond its fame, people's expressions are much more complicated.

Lei Jun, who boarded the last entrepreneurial train, neither caught up with the wave of new forces flocking to the car-making wave, nor missed the best opportunity to acquire them at the darkest moment. When he officially announced the car-making, this track was already full of strong competitors, and Wei, Xiaopeng and Li Auto were crawling out of the pile of dead bodies; traditional manufacturers, new car-making forces and technology startups were fighting fiercely, using all their strength to share the Chinese market of 30 million vehicles sold annually. Everyone is asking, where is the development space for Xiaomi Auto?

The result was surprising. Xiaomi Motors squeezed onto the poker table in its own way and earned the opportunity to stay on the table. When happiness came too suddenly and exceeded expectations, Lei Jun had a clear understanding: "Xiaomi Motors has successfully squeezed onto the poker table, but our long march has just begun."

Exploring the long march of Xiaomi Motors is another topic. As expected, SU7 has become a phenomenal product, and Xiaomi Motors has become the object of research under a magnifying glass. Everyone is curious about why Xiaomi Motors wins. This question can also be asked from another angle: what are the core competitiveness of Xiaomi Motors?

Bangning Studio believes that the first is the company, namely Xiaomi; the second is the leader, namely Lei Jun.

Let’s look at the company first. Xiaomi’s core competitiveness is mainly concentrated in three aspects.

The first aspect is to invest ten times as much in technologies that influence a car's driving perception, user experience, and performance.

This is a fact that Lei Jun has repeatedly emphasized in public speeches or interviews. Xiaomi's investment in R&D is well known. Xiaomi invested 3,400 engineers and 10 billion yuan in SU7. Such a large amount of money is beyond the reach of ordinary companies.

Xiaomi's super motor is also a typical example. From the mass-produced V6 series (21,000 rpm), to the V8s series (27,200 rpm, to be released in 2025) that breaks the industry's speed limit, to the laser rotor winding technology (35,000 rpm), Xiaomi has simultaneously developed three generations of super motor technology, which can be said to be the ultimate.

The second aspect is software intelligence, which is Xiaomi's natural advantage as a technology startup.

Lei Jun said that Xiaomi has the most extensive experience in software and hardware integration in the industry and has a deep understanding of the manufacturing industry.In the Internet industryNo one can beat it. This advantage combined with the second half of the new car intelligence, whether it is software-defined cars or competition in smart driving and smart cabins, the outcome is no longer in suspense before the war begins.

The third aspect is the full ecological capabilities of people, cars and homes.

Xiaomi has the industry's largest, most diverse, and most actively connected mature smart ecosystem. With the addition of smart cars and consumer electronics, Xiaomi's ecosystem has formed a closed loop, and its competitiveness in the automotive industry can be said to be unrivaled.

In this regard, even Huawei can only look up to it. Xiaomi started to build its ecosystem very early and has more than 200 SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) to date. As a latecomer, Huawei now has only a few dozen, not as rich as Xiaomi.

It should be noted that core competitiveness does not refer to core technology. These are two different concepts. Moreover, Xiaomi has never been a company that relies on core technology to win. Therefore, when SU7 was released, those who hoped to see disruptive products or disruptive technology were probably disappointed. In the view of Bangning Studio, on the contrary, Xiaomi Motors first chose a product that would not make mistakes and had a high probability of success.

Some people also complained that Xiaomi SU7 andPorscheThe appearance of the four-door sedan is similar. A senior car designer said that this issue should be viewed from the strategic stage of enterprise development. It is very safe to choose a distinctive and classic appearance recognized by the industry for the first product, otherwise the risk of loss will increase. As far as the automobile industry is concerned, design is always the icing on the cake.

Lei Jun has many labels. Some call him "Lei Busi", some call him "the god of marketing", some call him "the godfather of car traffic", and he is also called "the male protagonist of a cool article". Beyond these appearances, the real Lei Jun is often easily overlooked by the outside world. People who are familiar with him describe him as smart, hardworking, and interesting. He obviously prefers the title of engineer, and within Xiaomi, he defines himself as "extremely aggressive under extreme conservatism".

These two seemingly contradictory adjectives aptly describe Lei Jun's personality. On the one hand, he is conservative about major issues such as track selection and industry trends that are related to the future survival of the company. On the other hand, once a track is selected, he is extremely focused and spares no effort to invest 10 times the resources to overcome all difficulties to achieve the goal.

In this regard, we only need to look at his entrepreneurial journey to understand. When he founded Kingsoft, Microsoft had already become a trendsetter; when he founded Joyo.com, Amazon was already popular; when he entered the smartphone industry, Apple had already emerged; when he entered the smart car industry,TeslaIt is unstoppable...but after identifying the track and trend, Lei Jun went all in without hesitation.

Another unique quality of Lei Jun is his extreme diligence. Born in December 1969, he is 54 years old.Among the entrepreneurs struggling on the front line,There are not many people like him who are still entrepreneurs at his age and with such wealth. Lei Jun not only continues to fight, but also sticks to his work schedule of going to work at 8 am and leaving work after 12 pm. He does this every day, 7 days a week, as long as he is not on a business trip or having business receptions.

He is a role model in the industry in terms of time management and efficiency. It is said that he attends about 20 meetings a day on average, occasionally posts a few Weibo and Douyin, and often processes information while in meetings.

Contrary to what the outside world imagines, as the head of Xiaomi Group who manages 40,000 people and interacts with 50 million fans on social platforms, he operates almost all Weibo and Douyin by himself, and occasionally insiders remind him to push it. He has been doing this since he founded Xiaomi in 2010, and has been doing it for more than a decade.Year after year, I personally run the accountNumber.

In the past year, there has been a wave of bigwigs in the automotive industry going live, but few people have really thought about: What is the underlying logic behind Lei Jun's overwhelming traffic? How many people have thought that in addition to having tens of millions of fans on social platforms, Lei Jun also spans the Internet, technology, investment, finance and the automotive industry, which is absolutely different from the bigwigs in the automotive industry.

So, is Xiaomi Auto under pressure? In the view of Bangning Studio, the current pressure lies in the grasp of the rhythm. First, the production capacity cannot keep up, and car owners have to wait half a year to get their cars. How to retain these users is a big problem. Second, the channels are laid out too quickly and too hastily, and subsequent periodic adjustments will be needed.

On the other hand, there is the issue of the Xiaomi brand. Before the launch of SU7, many people were worried about whether car owners would accept and pay for it once it was branded with the Xiaomi logo. Now, this is no longer a problem.

Lei Jun led Xiaomi to build cars, which others cannot learn or replicate. Lei Jun understands manufacturing, has rich entrepreneurial experience, and has its own traffic, which is the characteristic and DNA of Xiaomi Auto. For other auto companies, they can either forge their own path or join the industry melee - no matter which path they take, it will not be easier than Xiaomi and Lei Jun.