Lei Jun’s Tribute to Car-Building Pioneers: Paying Homage to Porsche, Lotus, Citroen, and Tesla

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Lei Jun’s 1003 Days of Car-Building Illustration: Many tributes but too few transcendences

On December 28, Lei Jun chose the 1003rd day of the announcement that Xiaomi would make a car, making Xiaomi’s debut in 2023.

On this day, starting from 14:00 in the afternoon, Lei Jun, wearing a suit and leather tie, transformed into a “science popularization master” on the stage of the National Convention Center and introduced Xiaomi’s achievements in the five fields of electric drive, battery, large die-casting, intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit. From the technical investment and R&D results, it can be seen that Lei Jun is really serious about making cars and is determined to control all the underlying core technologies of an electric car.

The experience of the past three years has made Lei Jun deeply realize that building a car is not easy, and he especially wants to pay tribute to those who have gone before. So, on the eve of Xiaomi’s official debut, Lei Jun booked several advertising spaces to pay tribute to Wei Xiaoli, BYD and Huawei. Lei Jun said at the press conference that he did not expect this tribute to cause an uproar. After all, he didn’t pay tribute to more car companies that needed to be paid tribute to in their ads.

Lei Jun said that he actually visited every car company before building a car.

In fact, in our opinion, at the first press conference of Xiaomi Motors on December 28, Lei Jun paid tribute to many car companies and paid tribute to many car companies in the course of more than 100 years of automobile development. Those who are truly pioneers of their time.

At this press conference, Lei Jun showed how he can learn from his predecessors as a junior, stand on the shoulders of giants, and then look forward to achieving his goal: “Through 15 to 20 years of hard work, Xiaomi Motors will become one of the top five cars in the world.” Manufacturers, strive for the overall rise of China’s automobile industry.”

Pay tribute to Porsche, Lei Jun: Make a design that can stand the test of time

The first thing Xiaomi pays tribute to is Porsche.

In the century-old history of car manufacturing, the center of the automobile industry has shifted three times, from the United States to Europe to Japan, and design trends have also changed accordingly. In 1930, Harry Earle, the father of automobile design, proposed “planned abolition.” Automobile design focused on the rapid introduction of new products and the continuous introduction of new styles to stimulate consumption. After World War II, the European automobile industry rose rapidly and replaced the United States as the center. The timeless design admired in Europe became the mainstream, and Porsche’s design was one of the representatives.

Since 1963, Porsche’s classic model 911 has hardly changed and has shaped the DNA of all Porsche models. Elegance, unparalleled performance, and groundbreaking innovation can be so perfectly integrated in one car.

Tribute to Lotus, Lei Jun: Wind is the best designer

When it comes to wind, Lotus has to be mentioned. This is a supercar brand that has style deeply embedded in its genes. Lotus was the originator of wind tunnel testing. In an era when there was no professional wind tunnel equipment, Lotus covered the body of the prototype car with wool and determined the direction of air flow by observing the direction of the wool. Lotus is also regarded as the originator of aerodynamics. They tried to “wear the wind through their bodies” and change the wind from resistance to power. In the new energy era, Lotus continues to make breakthroughs in the field of aerodynamics, applying “porosity”, a brand-new aerodynamic concept in the automotive field, to its first pure electric sports car, Evija.

Tribute to Citroen, Lei Jun: The drag coefficient of water droplets in nature is the smallest, only 0.05

In 1955, Citroën DS19 was launched at the Paris Motor Show. Roland Barthes, the master of French structuralism, described DS as “coming from heaven to earth”. DS19 is full of the essence of French cars, individual, refined and unusual. DS19 was created by Italian sculptor Flaminio Bertoni and French aeronautical engineer Andre Lefevere. Bertoni was inspired by nature, looking for the most aerodynamic shape in nature, which is the shape of a water drop, to carve the body as closely as possible. Later, a fish gave Bertoni new inspiration, setting the tone for the final look of DS19. Reducing wind resistance is a top priority in car design at all times. In order to create the car with the lowest wind resistance in the world, Lei Jun also made the rearview mirror into the shape of a water drop.

Tribute to Tesla, Lei Jun: Tesla ushered in the era of great die-casting

Tesla has two groundbreaking achievements in the new energy era. One is to propose the concept of software-defined cars, turning cars into mobile computing terminals; the other is to subvert the manufacturing process of the automotive industry and open up Entering the era of integrated die-casting. Integrated die-casting has many benefits, simplifying the production process and reducing manufacturing costs, but not any car company can imitate it casually. Today, Tesla has entered the die-casting 2.0 era. Currently, the clamping force of the super-large die-casting machine in Tesla’s Texas Gigafactory has reached 9,000t, while the integrated large-scale die-casting machine independently designed by Xiaomi Motors has a clamping force of 9,100t.

We see that in paying tribute to competitors, Lei Jun is already working hard to surpass. But this kind of transcendence does not seem to be enough to meet the outside world’s expectations for Lei Jun and Xiaomi.

What is the significance of having 100t more than Tesla? After the press conference, some Mi boys around me said, don’t have high expectations for Xiaomi to build cars. If you understand Xiaomi mobile phones, you can probably understand Xiaomi cars.

When Lei Jun talked about creating 100 “unique”, “first” and “most” items, it was just like the curved screen that Xiaomi mobile phone used to create.

Lei Jun didn’t change, he still wanted to roll up the useless 1%. But these cannot meet everyone’s expectations.

Why? Because parameters will eventually be defeated by parameters. Some attentive media even discovered that the lowest wind resistance shown in the wind tunnel test – 0.195Cd is a version without lidar.

Many people hope that Xiaomi SU7 will be the first car built for young people, but after seeing the design and configuration, they should give up this idea.

Will young people like such a car? Why did Xiaomi poach young and promising designers, one of whom participated in the design of the BMW iX, and the other participated in the design of the Mercedes-Benz VISION EQXX, but still designed a “Porsche”.

When the combined cost of the three words “100 degrees, ternary lithium, and CATL” is hundreds of thousands of yuan, it is difficult for young people to “pay” for such high costs.

At the end of the press conference, Lei Jun spent about 10 minutes speaking from his heart about his feelings about building a car, making a technical press conference end with warmth and longing.

This passage also became his New Year’s message to everyone, in which he also mentioned, “No matter how many grand narratives there are in this era, no matter how much responsibility and responsibility you have, there is a surging dream in everyone’s heart. A yearning for freedom and boundless freedom. I think I can build a good car for these drivers, a dream car that carries all their yearnings!”

“Xiaomi’s first car, Xiaomi SU7, is built for these drivers on the road to their dreams.”

Yes, Lei Jun’s first car was a dream. Young people who want to buy a Xiaomi car should wait a little longer! If Lei Jun wants Xiaomi Motors to become one of the top five automakers in the world, young people will always be his friends that he will never give up on.

2023-12-31 07:00:00
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