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A Chinese smartphone brand’s plans to release an electric car have been made public ahead of its intended reveal, thanks to the usual government documentation needed to gain approval for its sale.
The Xiaomi SU7, an electric sedan, has been revealed via images available thanks to the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), which publishes documents relating to the country’s homologation process.
But recent rumours of the SU7’s apparently somewhat high expected price have overtaken the design’s ‘leak’ as the company’s main concern, according to outlet CarNewsChina.
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While Chinese electric cars are, generally, relatively affordable for the segment (even when imported to Australia), rumoured pricing and even allegedly fake posters with the car had pipped pricing at as much as 599,000 yuan, or AU$124,980 when directly converted.
Xiaomi’s PR Head, Wang Hua, took to social media platform Weibo to quash the rumours and said: “Until the official Xiaomi Auto product launch conference, all posters with Xiaomi car and prices are all fake.”
The SU7 sedan, set to be 4997mm long, 1963mm wide, and 1455mm tall, will come with either RWD or AWD layouts - power is said to be 220kW in rear-drive guise or as much as 495kW with all-wheel drive.
Notably, the smartphone brand plans to integrate its phone operating system into the multimedia and tech in the SU7 - the software is already designed with cars also in mind.
According to CarNewsChina, the SU7 will launch in the first half of this year, with pricing more realistically likely to land around 300,000 yuan, or AU$62,594.
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