posted in Technology
Xiaomi Has a Luxury SUV for $31,000 That All Western Brands Should Fear
www.wired.com/story/xiaomi-has-a-luxury-suv-all-western-brands-should-fear/Replying to @GolfFoxtrotLima@sh.itjust.works
They’ll be banned faster than you can memorize the spelling of Xiaomi. At least in the US, where we make sure the old inefficient companies stay afloat despite their incompetence.
Chinese cars are heavily subsidized by the state. The reason they’re so cheap is because China bets it can squeeze the competition out of the market before charging basically whatever they want.
I’ve seen Starbucks do the same thing to independent coffee shops.
Edit: This is a post about real car companies like Nissan, Volvo, Mercedes, Renault, whatever. I don’t care about America. Nobody has for decades.
And yet even at 2-3x the price, the Chinese EVs provide a better value than the handful of the American options they would compete against.
This SUV would be competing with the likes of a high end EV option like Lucid or Tesla. The Lucid Gravity starts a around $70k, and the Tesla Model X (now discontinued) was around $92k.
The Xiaomi SU7 (the car the Ford CEO has driven since 2024, despite being banned in the US) starts at $32k and clearly is targeted to compete the Porsche Taycan at $112k.
The vehicle in this article has heated floors, a projector, a pop-up roof, a fridge, swiveling seats, and over 1,000 miles of range. Functions western companies consider “luxury” are basically just standard in the Chinese market like heated and ventilated seats. They don’t even bother to advertise things like that because it’s a minimum expectation. There are zero western options that come close to something like that. The options available in the US suck, even taking industry subsidies into account.
Replying to @halcyoncmdr@piefed.social
heated floors, a projector, a pop-up roof, a fridge, swiveling seats,
Never have I once thought I needed any of that bullshit.
And yet there it is, along with basically every other “luxury” feature western companies save for high end models… all for the price of a base model SUV here.
Replying to @halcyoncmdr@piefed.social
Those aren’t luxury car features (minus the fridge), those are camper van features lol
The point is that what western car companies consider “luxury” features they charge extra for, like heated seats and that sort of thing, are basically standard there. So the luxury features they include to separate these models from the pack are these more niche things.
Replying to @SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
it seems to want it to be like a compact RV rather than a SUV
Replying to @halcyoncmdr@piefed.social
High-end EV options
Ok
like Tesla
…fucking WHAT?
I see you forget about the first 3 models that Tesla made that were $70k or higher when they were discontinued, and all launched at $90k+
Replying to @halcyoncmdr@piefed.social
They were only high-end EVs because the EV market was dogshit then. They’ve never competed with high-end cars in general.
Unfortunately it’s a race to the bottom and high-end cars are doing the same Tesla bullshit of a minimalist interior with a huge display instead of physical buttons with heft like they used to.