Xiaomi launched its first EV mannequin, the SU7, in early 2024. By the tip of the yr, international diplomats, buyers, and company from different Chinese language corporations had already began arriving on the firm’s manufacturing unit in Beijing to take part in one-off excursions, however the firm didn’t create a standardized expertise for the general public till the beginning of 2025. At first, Xiaomi supplied simply three excursions with 20 contributors every monthly.
However the tour proved extremely widespread, and Xiaomi rapidly started scheduling considerably extra slots. In July, the corporate mentioned it would provide one tour each weekday and 6 excursions most weekends, accommodating greater than 1,100 guests in whole. When July registration opened, nonetheless, over 27,000 purposes flooded in in a single day, in line with the Xiaomi app—so the possibilities of snagging a ticket stay slim.
These fortunate sufficient to safe a spot can count on to first be taken to an exhibit corridor to study notable improvements in Xiaomi’s electrical automobiles. The guests then hop on a shuttle and go into three working manufacturing strains out of six whole to look at the employees and robots in motion.
Afterwards, they will check trip a mannequin Xiaomi SU7 on a racecourse, the place a educated racecar driver demonstrates how the automotive can speed up from 0 to 60 mph in just some seconds. “It felt superior—takes off actually quick, with an on the spot kick,” Zhao tells WIRED. Lately, Xiaomi additionally began promoting inexpensive meals on the manufacturing unit and souvenirs to finish the expertise.
One other customer notes that the shuttle will quickly cease if it will get in the best way of a robotic, which is programmed to do its job on a strictly timed schedule and is thus much less versatile than a human employee. Yuanyuan remembers that after the tour ended, her daughter remarked: “I want to check more durable, in any other case I received’t be capable to discover a job sooner or later. It’ll be robots doing all of the work.”
Xiaomi’s manufacturing unit is a first-rate instance of how Chinese language corporations are rapidly evolving from labor-intensive manufacturing to extremely automated manufacturing, because of new developments in robotics and synthetic intelligence. In recent times, the Chinese language authorities has been closely selling the concept of “lights-out factories” that require no human labor, which means the machines can toil away within the darkness with out anybody needing to show the lights on. Corporations which have managed to attain this excessive stage of automation, from Foxconn to residence equipment giants, have turned their factories into advertising alternatives, inviting people to marvel on the know-how somewhat than do work.
Nio, one other main EV maker in China, has been publicly showcasing one among its extremely automated factories since late 2023. In 2024, over 130,000 individuals visited the manufacturing unit, the place sure manufacturing strains just like the physique store have achieved one hundred pc automation, in line with a press release despatched by the corporate. Zhang says when her newest tour group visited Nio’s manufacturing unit within the metropolis of Hefei final month, the contributors have been in a position to view three out of the 4 manufacturing strains. (The automotive portray course of, nonetheless, was excluded from public visits.)