Xiaomi is building some of the best, most capable high-performance electric cars in the world right now – and Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun wants you to know that they’re among the safest, too. To prove it, he’s wrapping a watermelon in the company’s “bulletproof” battery armor and dropping it off a six-storey building.
Designed to withstand punctures, tears, and abrasions, Xiaomi says its “bulletproof” battery coating gives its SU7 Ultra EV batteries significantly better safety performance in crash tests when compared to other EVs.
In a video uploaded to some of Jun’s personal social media accounts, Lei threw three watermelons from the top of a six-floor building located in the electric vehicle division on the company’s industrial campus on outskirts of Beijing. The watermelons coated with the grey coating … well, you can watch the video for yourself, below.
Xiaomi CEO vs. watermelon
The company began selling its SU7 Ultra EV last month, with a price tag just shy of $75,000. It’s the company’s latest effort to expand into China’s increasingly competitive luxury car segment. That car reportedly secured more than 10,000 orders in its first two hours on the market, with Lei noting a significant portion of its SU7 buyers were women between 30 and 35.
Those figures are believed to be driven by the popularity of the Xiaomi CEO, himself. Lei Jun – known as “Leibs” to his fans – has a massive online presence with 44 million followers and more than 210 million likes across his 490 videos.
Xiaomi is best known for its smartphone business, which shipped 168.5 million units last year alone – making it the third largest phone brand with over 10% global market share.
Electrek’s Take
I’ve said it before, but it seems like every new EV that emerges from China’s tech-forward luxury electric car brands makes EVs from Ford and Tesla look the level-three generic offerings from whatever the automotive equivalent of Dollar Tree is – and now the same is true for their fancy fruit coverings.
American car brands should be absolutely quaking.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Lei Jun; via Weibo, CarNewsChina.
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