Xiaomi’s electric car consumes very little on the highway, as evidenced by these impressive figures

The start of orders for the Xiaomi SU7, the brand’s first electric car, is nearing. Xiaomi boss Lei Jun is personally involved in the development of the car, and gives us a great hint about the SU7’s usability and autonomy on the highway. With surprises in store.

After its official launch in late 2023, the Xiaomi SU7 is being talked about a lot. The Chinese giant is moving into electric cars and between the super powerful engine, careful aerodynamics and Xiaomi’s duty, beautiful screen and interface, this first model looks very promising.

Xiaomi communicates a lot about this car, for example by taking it to MWC in Barcelona (where we were), but also through its CEO, Lei Jun. After driving over 1,200 km, he tells us about its autonomy on the highway in a long message on his Weibo account.

The theory…

Interestingly, Lei Jun reported the figures for the ‘standard’ SU7 with a 73.6 kWh battery, and not the ‘Max’, with its massive 101 kWh battery.

He begins by recalling that the autonomy of this standard version is 700 km according to the Chinese CLTC cycle, which is a small improvement compared to the initial estimate, which was 668 km CLTC in December 2023. Be careful, though: the CLTC cycle is short. Actual than our European WLTP cycle, and we would need to calculate about 600 km in WLTP.

Lei Jun still allows himself to point out that this “first price” SU7 (with all the necessary quotation marks, because it shouldn’t be given away) exceeds the Tesla Model 3 “long range”. This is true when the Model 3 is equipped with 19-inch rims with 682 km CLTC (629 km WLTP).

…and practice

So much for theory. Where Lei Jun’s intervention is important is that it provides statistics from driving tests in real conditions… and on the highway.

We know that the consumption of electric cars is growing at a faster rate especially due to the absence of a gearbox. The network of fast charging stations is getting denser every day in Europe, making it possible to travel stress-free, but autonomy is an important topic on the minds of novices.

So Xiaomi’s president reassures us and writes: “Measured at a top speed of 120 km/h and an average speed of 97.7 km/h, the standard version has a range of 495 km”Which is pretty remarkable for a “only” 73 kWh battery.

In real conditions, we assume that electric cars travel between two stations with 10 to 80% of their battery, which would still give 346 km in this condition. This is significantly more than the two hours of driving recommended by Road Safety, which makes us wonder: what if the SU7… had more autonomy?

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