39-km-Old Xiaomi SU7 Breaks Down, Repair Impossible

The incident happened shortly after the owner took the delivery and commenced driving it on the highway.

In a rather shocking turn of events, a brand new Xiaomi SU7 breaks down just after 24 miles (39 km) of driving. The Chinese electronics giant took the world by storm when it launched the supercar a couple of months ago at a fraction of Tesla and Porsche cars’ prices. In fact, Xiaomi bagged a whopping 50,000 orders within 27 minutes of the launch for SU7. Consequently, the waiting times for the deliveries are excruciatingly high.

However, a lot of owners who have received the electric car are reporting weird issues with the vehicle. This ranges from suspension failures to electronic glitches. In the most recent incident, the vehicle reported a complete malfunction which is beyond repair. Let us delve deep into the details of this case.

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39-km-Old Xiaomi SU7 Breaks Down

According to the detailed report by CarNewsChina, a certain Mr. Wen purchased the EV from Xiaomi Auto Xiamen Xing’an Delivery Center in Fujian Province on May 4. Local Chinese social media was filled with the video of his electric car parked on the side of the road after driving just 39 km. The error on the digital instrument cluster read, “The car is about to stop, please safely pull over and contact the online service center” and “the drive system is faulty and cannot be shifted”. The car couldn’t shift between drive and reverse.

After contacting the dealership, the mechanics arrived on the spot but was unable to repair it. Further news reports confirmed that the vehicle had to be sent back to the factory. Mr. Wen asked the dealer for a brand-new car. However, since the already produced SU7s have been allotted to the owners, it would take a long time for the new car to arrive. Therefore, Xiaomi customer service is reportedly negotiating a total refund along with compensation for the expenses he has incurred.

Not The First Issue

As mentioned previously, this is not the first issue that has cropped up in a Xiaomi SU7. Another recent one highlighted that the Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) was non-operational up to 135 km/h. In fact, Xiaomi acknowledged this problem and announced that it will be fixed after an OTA (Over-the-Air) update. Other issues include inconsistencies in the thickness of the paint, a crash due to a faulty traction control system, etc.

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Learn Electric Cars Says

To encounter so many incidents in a new car just a few weeks after the launch is not an ideal scenario for any carmaker. Much worse, these issues have emerged on a car which claims to rival the EVs from Tesla and Porsche. Build quality and usage of top-notch materials are at the core of these companies. If Xiaomi’s first car keeps struggling to convince buyers about its reliability, things could get pretty ugly really quickly.

The EV industry is anyway going through a slowdown in China and the USA. With more cases of issues with new electric cars, it will be hard to gain the trust of potential buyers going forward. While we await more details of this case, we can only hope that the Chinese electronics giant takes cognizance of these issues and expedites the matter as swiftly as possible.