Recently, Porsche China’s president and chief executive, Michael Kirsch, said, “For the similarities between Xiaomi SU7 and Porsche, I think perhaps good designs always have a kindred spirit.” He said that Porsche follows the brand’s unique design aesthetics and the creed of “design following function”, and has formed a distinct brand recognition in the past 75 years of history. Porsche has always adhered to the spirit of being brave in innovation in product research and development, and sticks to the rigorous and meticulous standards in product manufacturing. “We look forward to enterprises that apply the same standards or even higher requirements to conduct fair, just, honest, and legal benign competition with us.”
For whether Xiaomi SU7 exists in plagiarism, the industry has already had some discussions. Previously, Jia Yueying has publicly commented on Xiaomi’s cars, and the “shanzhai culture” is a cause for concern, and the benchmarking and plagiarism cannot bring technological change.
Jia Yueying first gave affirmation to the launch of Xiaomi’s cars, “The first release of Xiaomi’s cars was very successful, which reflects the increasingly mature of the Chinese new energy vehicle industry chain in recent years and the huge advantage of Chinese manufacturing cost performance.” Then, the tone changed, and Jia Yueying began to complain about Xiaomi’s cars, claiming that its “shanzhai culture”, taking shortcuts model, and follower thinking are revered by many people as the standard. Jia Yueying said, “Values determine the ceiling, and benchmarking, plagiarism, and shallow-level innovation cannot bring fundamental technological changes and basic scientific and technological transcendence. Only when the culture of change becomes the mainstream, rather than the “shanzhai culture” still prevailing; only when the original spirit is deeply engraved in the entrepreneur’s bones, rather than regarding the follower thinking as the “bible” of entrepreneurship.
Compared to the price of Xiaomi SU7, its exterior design is more controversial. It is understood that Xiaomi SU7 is completed by the world’s first Chinese designer of BMW, Li Tianyuan, the former senior exterior designer of Mercedes-Benz in Germany, Qiu Zhen, and the former senior interior designer of BMW, Shin.
Without exaggeration, the return rate of Xiaomi SU7 is much higher than that of Porsche. In terms of appearance, Xiaomi SU7 adopts a very sporty design, and the headlights adopt a rounded polygonal shape, and the internal uses a similar rice-shaped lamp cavity structure to increase recognition. In addition, a real air duct is equipped under the headlights to help the brake system to cool, and the lower surround and engine hood highlight the sporty feel, quite having the style of a sports car.
On the side of the body, Xiaomi SU7 has very smooth body lines, presenting a similar feeling of a coupe, and the sliding-back tail design and the extended wheel eyebrow design can easily make people think of the elements of a certain German luxury brand. The tail part, the new car adopts the popular through-type taillight design, the upturned ducktail design is very beautiful, and the rear bumper is added with decorative pieces of the same color as the body, showing a more dynamic style.
Why the exterior design of Xiaomi SU7 can trigger a hot discussion can be summed up in three main points. Firstly, the appearance of Xiaomi SU7 does have a “Porsche style”, whether it is the rounded polygonal shape of the front headlights or the overall body lines, it is very easy to think of Porsche. Lei Jun also directly called it “a Dream Car comparable to Porsche and Tesla” at the launch site. Secondly, Porsche has not been domestically produced for a long time, and is destined to be just a toy for a small number of consumers, while Xiaomi SU7 is priced at 200,000 yuan, and the appearance is similar to Porsche, which has a sense of “domestic Porsche”. Finally, the design of most domestic electric vehicles at the present stage is too unified, and many products are almost the same in terms of shape design, while the design of Xiaomi SU7 has opened up a new path.
Without a doubt, Xiaomi’s cars are the most successfully marketed electric vehicle brand at the present stage. Before going public, the illusory pricing of Xiaomi SU7 has fully aroused the appetite of users. The priced 215,900 yuan of Xiaomi SU7 directly detonated the automotive industry, and Lei Jun became “Lei God” overnight. Any topic related to Xiaomi’s cars will appear on the hot search, even when Zhi Ji Automobile released Zhi Ji L6, it almost compared with Xiaomi’s cars throughout the process.
It is understood that the delivery volume of Xiaomi SU7 in the first week of April was 1,095 vehicles, ranking fifth in the medium and large car market, with 3,764 vehicles of the Han family, 2,617 vehicles of Geely 001, 2,387 vehicles of Audi A6L, and 2,191 vehicles of Mercedes-Benz E-Class, and the weekly sales of the new Geely 001 is higher than that of Xiaomi SU7.
