fromxiaomi su7 from the moment the car's design was unveiled, "plagiarism"porsche"this kind of voice never stops.

at the recent chengdu auto show, another senior executive of a car company spoke bluntly:"i want to criticize xiaomi directly. this is plagiarism, how shameless. plagiarism is a successful business model. many people don't know the car called porsche, so how can a porsche car be ugly? i understand, there is nothing to be embarrassed about, as long as it is successful."

here i would like to state my opinion: saic does have many original and good designs, but a large part of the criticism of xiaomi may be due to the mentality of "competents look down on each other". in fact, xiaomi su7 is comparable to porsche taycan or panamera.just a tribute, no plagiarism。

here we first look at what the “party involved” said. during the china international consumer goods expo in april this year, michael kirsch, president and ceo of porsche china, said:as for the similarities between xiaomi su7 and porsche, i think maybe good design always has a tacit understanding.。”

i have to say this is an answer with very high eq, but is porsche really that generous?

if porsche really has legal evidence that xiaomi su7 plagiarized its own work, porsche will definitely not let go of this opportunity.

so the truth is, first of all, xiaomi su7 does not infringe on any legal or patent grounds.

xiaomi did not infringe on the patent

porsche is definitely aware of the protection of its appearance design. in october 2017, porsche applied for an appearance design patent for the taycan in china and obtained the patent in 2019, with a validity period of 10 years (changed to 15 years after june 2021). xiaomi su7 was officially launched at the end of march this year, which is within this validity period.

the basic method to determine whether there is infringement is:overall observation and comprehensive judgment。

note thatoverall observation does not refer to whether the two cars look alike, but to observe the "key points of design"the design points are:the design features that are different from existing designs and can have a significant visual impact on ordinary consumers。

let’s compare the porsche taycan and xiaomi su7’s “design points”。

first of all, the most similar part between porsche taycan and xiaomi su7 is the side profile, but this is the only part that is similar. xiaomi su7 does not have any other "design features" of porsche.

moreover, these are all comparisons of pictures on the internet. if you observe the two cars in person, the differences are still very large. the porsche taycan is obviously lower and sportier. there are even more differences in details, from the front and rear headlights, wheels, sunroof, front and rear grilles, to exterior mirrors.

as for why there are so many voices online saying that "xiaomi copied porsche", my personal opinion is that first of all, the body of the porsche taycan is too iconic. there are very few cars like this in reality (because a lot of space has to be sacrificed), and suddenly a car with a similar outline came out, and everyone made the connection at once. in addition, the traffic brought by xiaomi auto is very terrifying, so everyone started discussing it all at once.

as the saying goes: good news doesn’t travel far, but bad news travels far and wide.

few people discuss the good and original design part of xiaomi su7, but the part suspected of imitation has suddenly become known to the whole network. although it is a bit helpless, it does conform to the law of communication.

i have also read some posts accusing xiaomi su7 of plagiarism. most of them compared the side profile. if you change the angle, the picture will be completely different. even from the side, if you look at the actual car offline, the feeling will be different.

so why is the side proportion of xiaomi su7 designed like this?

how did the side ratio of xiaomi su7 come about?

first of all, the automobile has been around for more than 100 years, and automobile design is already a very mature field.many design rules have been formed or there are many templates that can be used.。

for example, many classic models have just enough space between two wheels to fit three wheels (calculated by the outer diameter, xiaomi calls this the wheel-axle ratio, but it seems not very rigorous). the following four pictures are from the car circle "kimura takuya", up host "toto wenhan".

we see the standard wheelbase bmw 3 series,audi A4、mercedes-benz c-classthe side profile is basically the same, with just enough space between the two wheels for the three outer diameters of the wheels. other mid-size luxury cars, such asvolvo s60, lexus is, jaguar xe, etc.

another "template" is that the height of the car is exactly the height of the outer diameter of the two wheels, such as the bmw 3 series, audi a4,benz c these models also basically follow.

xiaomi su7 also follows the above two proportions, which is in line with the industry's rules for sports cars. if you compare it with porsche taycan, you can fit three more wheel diameters between the two wheels, which is the same as xiaomi su7, but taycan's body height is lower, and in fact, the body height is significantly lower than the height of the two wheels.

from the specificthe trade-offs between taycan and xiaomi su7 can also be seen in the body sizeas a sports luxury brand, porsche taycan is priced at more than 800,000 yuan, with a body height of only 1,381mm. its body posture is closer to that of a sports car, and it is difficult for adults to sit in the back seat. xiaomi su7 takes the practicality of space into consideration. after all, the owner of porsche taycan may have several cars at home, so the back seat is not important, but the back seat of xiaomi su7, which costs 200,000 to 300,000 yuan, is still very important.

in addition, as to why xiaomi su7 is madeslip-backthe xiaomi mi su7 is not designed to be a traditional three-box car. on the one hand, it is difficult to ensure headroom in the z direction because there is a battery underneath the pure electric car. on the other hand, it is for wind resistance. the wind resistance of xiaomi mi su7 is as low as 0.195. xiaomi claims that the 28° front windshield + 17° large sloping back reduces the wind resistance by 10 counts, which is 0.01. adding this 0.01 wind resistance, the total wind resistance is 0.205.

at the su7 launch conference, lei jun also said: "the design with the least wind resistance is basically like this."

xiaomi auto's top design team

finally, let’s briefly talk about the design team behind xiaomi auto.

first of all, the chief designer li tianyuan is the formerbmwthe world's first chinese designer, he participated in many automotive design and development projects of the bmw group, including bmw, mini, rolls-royce, etc. his representative works includebmw ix exterior design, the bmw 2019 5 series mid-term facelift, and the bmw 2021 i vision circular concept car.

the representative work of qiu zhen, the head of exterior design, is the mercedes-benz vision eqxx. he led the design of the electric car with the lowest wind resistance in the world at that time, which could run more than 1,000 km on a single charge.

shin muto, head of interior design, is a former senior interior designer at bmw.bmw x1 interior, bmw 2 series interior, bmw 1 series concept car. among them, x1 and 2 series won the german golden steering wheel award in 2022 and 2023. this award is equivalent to the oscar award in the automotive industry and is highly professional and authoritative.

finally, former bmw "genius designer" chris bangle also gave a high evaluation.

in general, it is not true to say that xiaomi su7 copied porsche. of course, it is undeniable that xiaomi’s car manufacturing was indeed inspired by porsche and there is a tribute to it.

finally, if you want to talk about nio et7, xpeng mona m03, polestar 3,extreme 07. avita 12. isn’t a design like this, which basically has no homage, is more original and also very beautiful, better?

the answer is of course “yes”.