
If Xiaomi want to be taken seriously
Then perhaps the way to do that isn't to ape another manufacturer's product quite as blatantly. Y'know, a bit of original design perhaps? Maybe it's that they can't.
The electric vehicle subsidiary of Chinese consumer electronics brand Xiaomi on Tuesday announced its first product – the Speed Ultra 7 (SU7) sedan – will be ready for deliveries this month. In a Weibo post, the biz – which is famed around the world for well-priced smartphones, and sells electric toothbrushes, wireless routers …
"I'd have thought as a sedan and not a crossover SUV it was fairly unique for a new model these days."
Well it would be unique if it weren't for the fact that Porsche launched the Taycan back in 2019. Do a search, compare the cars.
Chinese innovation at its finest.
I'm more interested in the means by which a smartphone company has branched out into the manufacture (or at least supply) of such a diverse range of goods with no obvious synergies - smart cooking robots, pet-food feeders and luggage, for example - before we even get to electric cars. It's certainly a very different approach than western companies which tend to stick closely to their core markets.
It's not that different to the Korean chaebol and the Japanese keiretsu, and I think it reflects a combination that cultural those parts of the world see nothing amiss in this, management have greater liberty to take what they claim is a longer term view, and shareholder activism and power is very low.
Apple of course tried to develop a car, but quietly abandoned it, and any Western company that starts to diversify will soon find itself besieged by shareholder activists who think they can make a quick killing by breaking up a conglomerate or closing down divisions that dilute the returns from a profitable core business.
I'm old enough to remember the quality of the first Japanese products that hit (often with a great big splat) the UK market. Quality did improve rapidly to the point where it was better than the indigenous product. China seems to be taking the same route to some degree.
If their car is anything like the Xiaomi Redmi phone that I have (for one of my 2 phones) then the car will have a privacy policy for using everything. A message will pop up asking you if you accept the privacy policy for the indicators, or the horn (and almost everything else*) before you use them. The satellite navigation app (for example) will shut down randomly and without warning. Despite selecting that you want to use your mp3 player as the default music option, when you try and play anything it will use the car stereo first instead. Oh and the car stereo will also have a privacy policy
Maybe the Chinese drivers won’t mind all of that but it buggs the crap out of me.
*Why does the calculator app on this phone have or indeed need a privacy policy?
Yeah with you mightily on all of that. And then some too. Have you looked at the FM Radio app in the settings App section? There are two listed, your first is the Radio and I would suspect that this is actually the one that will run the radio. The other more suspect one is a “FM Radio Services” which has access to my microphone and that’s not something I can deny it. Why does a radio need to use my microphone, a bit creepy that. Then if you look deeper at it, why is the FM radio trying to connect to the internet which it does according to my firewall?
Also set your apps in Settings to show system apps and scroll right down to the bottom of the app list. You’ll find if your phone is like mine an app with an Android app icon and the name is three Chinese characters as the name. This has access to the Camera, Microphone, Storage and Telephone, all of which again would be permissions you can’t stop access to. If you weren’t paranoid before you probably are now.
I made the mistake of getting a Xiaomi phone a while ago. I won't be buying another Xiaomi (or Poco) phone.
Xiaomi's approach seems to be to riddle the thing with endless advertising that you have to go into each and every built-in and preloaded app to turn off individually. I don't imagine any other connected Xiaomi product, including a car, will be any less unpleasant.