logo
Xiaomi unit wins land tender in Beijing for EV manufacturing

Xiaomi unit wins land tender in Beijing for EV manufacturing

Time of India5 hours ago

A
Xiaomi
unit has won a tender to buy a plot of land in Beijing close to its existing car factory for 635 million yuan ($88 million), which it plans to use for a smart connected car and components project, a city regulator said on Thursday.
The win for a 50-year lease to the 485,134 square metre-large plot of land was announced by Beijing's municipal planning and natural resources commission.
The land plot is close to the second phase of Xiaomi's EV factory. Xiaomi Jingxi Technology, winner of the tender on Thursday, secured the second phase that covers an area of 531,130 square metres for 842 million yuan in July 2024. The project reached its final stage in April.
The tender win would make Xiaomi one of the few automakers in China approved to expand capacity while the majority of the sector is grappling with overcapacity.
Xiaomi said its new YU7 sports utility vehicle is getting more attention than the SU7 sedan and on its app, buyers have to wait up to 51 weeks to pick their Xiaomi cars as the company ramps up output.
Xiaomi, the world's third-largest smartphone maker, launched the SU7 sedan last year and has outsold
Tesla
's Model 3 on a monthly basis since December.
The SU7's success is seen expediting the company's EV bid despite intense competition in the world's largest auto market.
Xiaomi raised its target for EV deliveries this year to 350,000 from 300,000 earlier this year. The company had planned an annual output of 300,000 vehicles in its EV factory to be built in two phases.
It will take orders for the YU7 at the end of June, CEO Lei Jun said on Wednesday. The YU7's release was earlier set for July.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Elon Musk on when he just wanted a job at Netscape and was rejected because …
Elon Musk on when he just wanted a job at Netscape and was rejected because …

Time of India

time2 hours ago

  • Time of India

Elon Musk on when he just wanted a job at Netscape and was rejected because …

Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed he never intended to become an entrepreneur, he simply wanted a job at Netscape in 1995. Speaking at Y Combinator 's AI Startup School in San Francisco this week, the billionaire shared how Marc Andreessen's browser company ignored his application, inadvertently launching one of history's most successful entrepreneurial careers. "I sent my resume into Netscape and nobody responded," Musk told Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan during the fireside chat. "So, I'm like man, this is ridiculous, so I'll just write software myself and see how it goes." The rejection forced Musk to drop out of Stanford 's PhD program and pivot to building his own company. Despite holding physics and business degrees from Wharton and pursuing graduate studies in applied physics, his lack of computer science credentials apparently didn't impress Netscape's hiring team. From rejection to riches: The $300 million outcome by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Giao dịch CFD với công nghệ và tốc độ tốt hơn IC Markets Đăng ký Undo That "see what happens" mindset led to Zip2, Musk's first startup, which he built while sleeping in the office and showering at the YMCA. The company sold for $300 million in 1999, with Musk earning $20 million, money he immediately reinvested into his next venture, "I kept the chips on the table," Musk explained, describing his decision to risk everything on subsequent ventures rather than playing it safe. Back to the 'main quest' after political detour Now worth $366 billion according to Bloomberg's Billionaire Index, Musk reflected on his recent involvement with government efficiency initiatives as a "side quest." He emphasized his return to technology development as his "main quest," noting the contrast between engineering's demand for truth and politics' inherent noise. The Tesla founder, whose companies now include SpaceX (valued at $350 billion) and xAI , offered simple advice to aspiring entrepreneurs: "Try to be as useful as possible! You do whatever it takes to succeed!"

How is Tesla expected to remotely control its robotaxis, and what are its limitations?
How is Tesla expected to remotely control its robotaxis, and what are its limitations?

Time of India

time2 hours ago

  • Time of India

How is Tesla expected to remotely control its robotaxis, and what are its limitations?

Tesla is expected to tiptoe into its long-awaited robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, as soon as Sunday with about 10 of its Model Y SUVs that will operate within strict limits. CEO Elon Musk has said the company is being "super paranoid" about safety and that humans will remotely monitor the fleet. Remote access and control - known in the industry as " teleoperation " - is used in varying degrees by the handful of robotaxi startups operating around the globe. The technology has clear advantages and important limitations. Here are some details of how it works: Play Video Pause Skip Backward Skip Forward Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration 0:00 Loaded : 0% 0:00 Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 1x Playback Rate Chapters Chapters Descriptions descriptions off , selected Captions captions settings , opens captions settings dialog captions off , selected Audio Track default , selected Picture-in-Picture Fullscreen This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Text Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Caption Area Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Drop shadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like If You Eat Ginger Everyday for 1 Month This is What Happens Tips and Tricks Undo WHAT IS TELEOPERATION? Teleoperation is the control of machines by humans in a different location, usually over a wireless network. Live Events It is used to train robots to operate autonomously, monitor their autonomous activity, and take over when required. HOW DO ROBOTAXI OPERATORS USE TELEOPERATION? The global robotaxi industry is still in test mode, as companies deploy the vehicles in limited geographic areas and continually adjust the artificial intelligence software that controls them. Teleoperation is often used to intervene when a vehicle is unsure of what to do. Alphabet's Waymo, for example, has a team of human "fleet response" agents who respond to questions from the Waymo Driver - its bot. "Much like phone-a-friend, when the Waymo vehicle encounters a particular situation on the road, the autonomous driver can reach out to a human fleet response agent for additional information," Waymo said in a blog post last year. Former Waymo CEO John Krafcik told Reuters, "the cars aren't being actively monitored," adding that the software is "the ultimate decision-maker." A Waymo video shows a car asking a remote operator whether a street with emergency response vehicles is open to traffic. When the human says yes, the vehicle proceeds. In contrast, other companies, such as Baidu's Apollo Go in China, have used fully remote backup drivers who can step in to virtually drive the vehicles. Baidu declined to comment. WHAT ARE THE LIMITATIONS? Driving vehicles remotely on public roads has a major potential problem: it relies on cellular data connections that can drop or operate with a lag, disconnecting the vehicle from the remote driver in dangerous situations. Philip Koopman, a Carnegie Mellon University engineering professor and autonomous-vehicle safety expert, said that approach could work for a small test deployment of 10 vehicles, such as Tesla's initial effort in Austin, but he called teleoperation "inherently unreliable technology." "Eventually you will lose connection at exactly the worst time," he said. "If they've done their homework, this won't ever happen for 10 cars. With a million cars, it's going to happen every day." Former Waymo CEO Krafcik agreed, adding that the time delay in cell signal makes remote driving "very risky." On the other hand, relying on the vehicle to reach out for help and allowing the vehicle to be the decision-maker are risky as well, Koopman said, as it does not guarantee the vehicle will make the right decision. Waymo declined to comment on the limitations of its approach. Koopman also noted there are limits to how many vehicles one person can safely monitor. A group of Democratic Texas lawmakers asked Tesla on Wednesday to delay its robotaxi launch until September, when a new autonomous-driving law is scheduled to take effect. The Austin-area lawmakers said in a letter that delaying the launch "is in the best interest of both public safety and building public trust in Tesla's operations." WHAT IS TESLA'S APPROACH? Musk for years has promised, without delivering, that its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) advanced driver assistance software would graduate to completely self-driving and control robotaxis . This year, he said Tesla would roll out a paid service in Austin underpinned by an "unsupervised" version of the software. "Teslas will be in the wild, with no one in them, in June, in Austin," Musk told analysts and investors in January. In May, he told CNBC that the robotaxi would only operate in parts of Austin that are safe for it, would avoid difficult intersections, and would use humans to monitor the vehicles. What those teleoperators will do is not clear. For years inside Tesla, company executives have expected to use teleoperators who could take over in case of trouble, said one person familiar with the matter. For instance, if a robotaxi were stuck in a crowded pedestrian area and confused about what to do next, a human teleoperator could take over and guide it, the source said. Tesla advertised for teleoperation positions, saying the company needs the ability to "access and control" autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots remotely. Such employees can "remotely perform complex and intricate tasks," it said in the advertisements. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment. "We are being super paranoid about safety, so the date could shift," Musk said in a post on X last week while providing a tentative launch date of June 22.

China floods Brazil with cheap EVs triggering backlash
China floods Brazil with cheap EVs triggering backlash

Time of India

time4 hours ago

  • Time of India

China floods Brazil with cheap EVs triggering backlash

The world's largest car-carrying ship, with the equivalent of 20 football fields of vehicles - completed its maiden journey late last month to dock in Brazil 's Itajai port. But not everyone is cheering its arrival. BYD , China 's top producer of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, is offering Brazilian car shoppers relatively low-priced options in a market where the green-car movement is still in its infancy. Brazilian auto-industry officials and labor leaders worry that the vast influx of cars from BYD and other Chinese automakers will set back domestic auto production and hurt jobs. BYD has deployed a growing fleet of cargo ships to accelerate its expansion overseas, with Brazil becoming its top target, according to Reuters analysis of shipping data and company statements. The late-May shipment was the fourth of the Chinese carmaker's ships to dock in Brazil this year, totaling around 22,000 vehicles, according to Reuters calculations. BYD, the world's top producer of electric and plug-in hybrid cars, is the largest among several Chinese brands targeting Brazil for growth. China-built vehicle imports are expected to grow nearly 40 per cent this year, to about 200,000, according to Brazil's main auto association. That would account for roughly 8 per cent of total light-vehicle registrations. Industry and labor groups say China is taking advantage of Brazil's temporarily low tariff barriers to ramp up its exports rather than investing to build Brazilian factories and create jobs. They are lobbying Brazil's government to accelerate by a year a plan to increase Brazil's tariff on all EV imports to 35 per cent from 10 per cent, rather than gradually phasing in higher levies. "Countries around the world started closing their doors to the Chinese, but Brazil didn't," said Aroaldo da Silva, a Mercedes-Benz production worker and president of IndustriALL Brasil, a confederation of unions across six industrial sectors. "China made use of that." BYD did not respond to a request for comment on the industry's concerns. SURPLUS CARS Brazil has emerged as a flashpoint in the China auto industry's torrid global expansion. A growing surplus of new cars being pumped out of Chinese factories has led to an export boom over the past five years, helping China pass Japan in 2023 to become the world's top vehicle exporter. Much of this excess is being shipped overseas, to markets like Europe, Southeast Asia and Latin America. Brazil offers an enticing destination due to its large market - it is the sixth-largest car market by volume - where established players including Volkswagen , General Motors and Jeep-maker Stellantis have been building cars domestically for decades. The Brazilian government has set policies aimed at growing sales of electric and plug-in hybrid cars, BYD's specialty. Meanwhile, BYD's path for growth elsewhere has narrowed, both domestically and overseas. At home, the company is mired in a bruising price war that has seen it slash the price of its entry-level Seagull to below $10,000, squeezing profit margins. Abroad, governments have erected stiff trade barriers for Chinese cars, including a 45.3 per cent duty in Europe and a tariff of more than 100 per cent in the United States, along with a ban on Chinese software in cars. For years, Brazilian officials have taken steps to protect the market from unfettered access by Chinese car companies. But it has been slower to react and less aggressive than other nations. In 2015, Brazil eliminated tariffs on manufacturers like BYD to spur electric vehicle adoption, but last year it reintroduced a 10 per cent tariff on electric cars to encourage investment in the domestic auto industry. The tariff is scheduled to increase every six months before hitting 35 per cent in 2026. Brazil's Ministry of Development, Industry & Foreign Trade told Reuters that a request by Brazil's auto association, ANFAVEA, and others to pull forward the higher tariff was under review. "The schedule for the gradual resumption of tariffs, with decreasing quotas, was established to allow companies to continue with their development plans and respect the maturity of manufacturing in the country," a ministry spokesperson added. BYD and other Chinese companies also are taking advantage of a policy in Brazil that allows them to import toll-free up to $169 million for plug-in hybrids imported by July 2025 and $226 million for battery-electric cars. That incentivizes front loading of vehicle shipments to fully benefit from the toll-free quotas before they expire, analysts said. 'EXCESS OF IMPORTS' BYD's export strategy hinges on the carmaker being able to continue growing shipments without triggering resistance from local authorities. But industry representatives in Brazil have grown increasingly worried that BYD's plans to begin domestic vehicle production are being pushed off. In 2023, government officials cheered BYD's plan to purchase a former Ford plant in the state of Bahia, viewing it as a way to create manufacturing jobs and spur the country's green transition. But an investigation into labor abuses on the construction site pushed back its timeline for "fully functional" production to December 2026, local officials said in May. Another Chinese automaker, GWM, also delayed by more than a year its plan to start making cars at a former Mercedes-Benz plant. The Brazilian government expects the plant to begin operating this year. "We support the arrival of new brands in Brazil to produce, promote the components sector, create jobs and bring new technologies," Igor Calvet , president of ANFAVEA, told Reuters. "But from the moment that an excess of imports causes lower investment in production in Brazil, that worries us." Da Silva of IndustriALL said his confederation of unions had not heard of any local supplier relationships being developed or contracts being signed for the BYD plant, as would normally be expected 18 months from the start of production. "Even if the factory is here - what value is it really adding if the components, development, and technology is all from abroad?" da Silva said. BYD did not respond to a request for comment on its supplier network. President Lula da Silva 's left-wing Workers Party government is scrambling to protect jobs and the environment as it aims to both revive Brazil's industrial economy and restore its green credentials ahead of hosting the COP30 global climate summit this November. Still, the country's nascent green-car movement leans on Chinese imports, which account for more than 80 per cent of Brazil's electric-car sales, according to Brazil's EV association, ABVE. The country has abundant mineral resources including lithium and other key ingredients to make EV batteries. But the infrastructure to produce all the necessary components for electric cars does not exist yet, said Ricardo Bastos , director of government relations at GWM Brazil and president of ABVE. GWM, which bought a factory in Brazil in 2021 with capacity for 50,000 cars a year and is due to start producing its Haval H6 SUV there this July, is in talks with around 100 Brazil-based suppliers on setting up contracts, Bastos told Reuters. "This year, imported cars will coexist alongside cars produced in Brazil," Bastos said.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store