Donald Trump hates electric cars, especially Chinese ones, but his administration’s sanctions on China’s Xiaomi in early 2021 prompted the company to decide to make electric cars, CEO Lei Jun said. Reuters at the company event on Friday.
Best known for its smartphones, Xiaomi launched its first EV earlier this year, a move Lei said came only after he learned that the Trump administration had placed the company on a U.S. sanctions list.
“I got a call from a friend saying we had been sanctioned,” Lei said, adding that Xiaomi had called an emergency board meeting that day to jumpstart its electric vehicle production efforts.
2024 Xiaomi SU7
“If it weren’t for the huge impact of the unexpected US sanctions, we wouldn’t have rushed into the complex auto industry,” Lei said. Xiaomi challenged the sanctions in federal court in 2021, and May won a reversal of the sanctions, which would have restricted US investment, Reuters noted. But by then, development of the Xiaomi SU7 electric vehicle was already underway.
Launching in late 2023, the SU7 is a Tesla Model S-sized rival that sells for around the price of a Model 3—around $30,000 in China, the only market it plans to sell in. It will compete with Tesla as well as other Western brands. Multiple powertrain and battery pack options will be available, including a 664-horsepower dual-motor powertrain with a range of up to 600 miles on China’s very generous CLTC test cycle.
2024 Xiaomi SU7
President Joe Biden has imposed higher tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles while also supporting policies to boost EV sales in the United States, including charging infrastructure investment and a revamped electric vehicle tax credit. Although it remains uncertain whether Vice President Kamala Harris — now the presumptive Democratic nominee after Biden withdrew from the race — will be running for president. 2024 presidential election—supports the import of electric vehicles from China, future policies of the Harris administration will likely be similar.
Meanwhile, Trump has promised a 100% tax on cars made in Mexico—EV or not—targets vehicles from Chinese companies that manufacture there. He has made it clear that Chinese companies will not be blocked from manufacturing EVs in the United States, with American labor and materials, but Trump’s overall EV policy essentially looks like a policy that, in some ways, gasoline car subsidy.
