
Xiaomi launched its first EV mannequin, the SU7, in early 2024. By the tip of the 12 months, overseas diplomats, buyers, and company from different Chinese language corporations had already began arriving on the firm’s manufacturing facility in Beijing to take part in one-off excursions, however the firm didn’t create a standardized expertise for the general public till the beginning of 2025. At first, Xiaomi supplied simply three excursions with 20 members every per 30 days.
However the tour proved extremely standard, and Xiaomi rapidly started scheduling considerably extra slots. In July, the corporate mentioned it can supply one tour each weekday and 6 excursions most weekends, accommodating greater than 1,100 guests in complete. When July registration opened, nonetheless, over 27,000 purposes flooded in in a single day, based on the Xiaomi app—so the probabilities of snagging a ticket stay slim.
These fortunate sufficient to safe a spot can count on to first be taken to an exhibit corridor to find out about notable improvements in Xiaomi’s electrical automobiles. The guests then hop on a shuttle and go into three working manufacturing traces out of six complete to look at the employees and robots in motion.
Afterwards, they will take a look at trip a mannequin Xiaomi SU7 on a racecourse, the place a educated racecar driver demonstrates how the automobile can speed up from 0 to 60 mph in only a few seconds. “It felt superior—takes off actually quick, with an immediate kick,” Zhao tells WIRED. Lately, Xiaomi additionally began promoting reasonably priced meals on the manufacturing facility and souvenirs to finish the expertise.
One other customer notes that the shuttle will quickly cease if it will get in the best way of a robotic, which is programmed to do its job on a strictly timed schedule and is thus much less versatile than a human employee. Yuanyuan recollects that after the tour ended, her daughter remarked: “I would like to review more durable, in any other case I gained’t have the ability to discover a job sooner or later. It’ll be robots doing all of the work.”
Xiaomi’s manufacturing facility is a chief instance of how Chinese language corporations are rapidly evolving from labor-intensive manufacturing to extremely automated manufacturing, due to new advances in robotics and synthetic intelligence. Lately, the Chinese language authorities has been closely selling the concept of “lights-out factories” that require no human labor, that means the machines can toil away within the darkness with out anybody needing to show the lights on. Corporations which have managed to realize this excessive degree of automation, from Foxconn to residence equipment giants, have turned their factories into advertising and marketing alternatives, inviting people to marvel on the expertise reasonably than do work.
Nio, one other main EV maker in China, has been publicly showcasing one in every of its extremely automated factories since late 2023. In 2024, over 130,000 folks visited the manufacturing facility, the place sure manufacturing traces just like the physique store have achieved 100% automation, based on an announcement despatched by the corporate. Zhang says when her newest tour group visited Nio’s manufacturing facility within the metropolis of Hefei final month, the members have been capable of view three out of the 4 manufacturing traces. (The automobile portray course of, nonetheless, was excluded from public visits.)