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Xiaomi is well on track to launch its first electric vehicle in the first half of 2024. The smartphone maker announced its entry into the EV segment earlier this year and pitched it as its next big project. The company has revealed that a total of 13,919 members are working in its research and development (R&D) department, out of which 500 are actively working on the company’s electric car project. The numbers were revealed in Xiaomi’s financial report. Even though the report doesn’t reveal much about the EV project, it suggests that Xiaomi is on track to meet its launch timelime.

The financial report claims there are nearly 14,000 members in the R&D department and account for around 44 percent of the company’s total number of employees. Xiaomi is aggressively focusing on the EV segment and has acquired an autonomous driving-based startup called Deepmotion in August 2021. It plans to set up a subsidiary to overlook the EV segment with a total investment of $10 billion yuan over the next 10 years.

Xiaomi’s first electric car can enter mass production in the first half of 2023 and be announced in the first half of 2024. That is the current plan though. It’s no secret that the auto industry has been hit equally hard by the component shortage like the smartphone industry.

Xiaomi has already registered its EV company as Xiaomi EV, Inc with a capital of 10 billion Yuan or Rs 11,000 crore. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun has been signed as the legal representative of the company, as mentioned in a statement by Xiaomi following the registration. As of September 2021, the company had appointed a staff of 300 and was hiring more people for the new business vertical.

At the time of its announcement, the company had claimed that it was ready for an investment of $10 billion (roughly Rs 73,000 crores) in its EV unit, to be spent in the span of the next 10 years. Though details of how this investment will be made are sparse as of now.

When the first Xiaomi EV enters the market, it will compete with electric cars from the likes of Apple, Oppo, among other traditional players.

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India today

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