• Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi started selling its first car, the SU7, earlier this year.
• Ford's CEO says the EV is "fantastic." Our reviewer says it looks good and delivers on performance too.
• The SU7 simply shouldn't drive this well given it's from a company that has not produced vehicles before.

Ford CEO Jim Farley made headlines recently after saying he'd been driving a Chinese EV for the past six months — and didn't want to give it up because he thought the car was "fantastic."

The car in question is perhaps the year's biggest sensation in China's EV market: the Xiaomi SU7.

Xiaomi is not that big a name outside Asia despite being one of the world's biggest smartphone makers. It's the latest to enter the hypercompetitive Chinese EV market, in which the only Western company doing well these days is Tesla.

There's no doubt the SU7 is a looker; the problem is it looks a bit too much like a few other well-known sports cars. Luckily, I found the car not only looks the part but delivers the goods when it comes to performance, too.

My test drive was quite limited by time, so I didn't get to try the car as fully as I would have liked. One of my first experiences was driving it down into an underground parking lot for a wash before the video shoot.

With the tight spiral, the SU7's near-five meter (16.4 foot) length proved a challenge, although the array of sensors offering a 360-degree view on the screen helped. The car has a respectable turning radius of 5.7 meters (18.7 feet).

Given Xiaomi's consumer electronics origins, the SU7 is packed full of equipment. The infotainment screen in the center is impossible to miss, and there's also an instrument screen that revolves to greet you. My car even had a fridge in the center console large enough for about six canned drinks, although I later discovered it's an optional extra.

Once on the move, the wide-angle heads-up display takes center stage. I would say the SU7's emphasis tends to be on tech rather than creature comforts. Yes, there is a 25-speaker sound system that boasts Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 — but even on my top-spec Max version, the leather seats are an add-on cost.

You can forget a massage seat function that's common on many Chinese EVs. Yet you will find a fixed panoramic roof, and rear passengers have a reasonable amount of space.

Talking of space, the designers put in storage places for all your gadgets. A laptop fits in the glovebox, there's a pocket for a smartphone on the front passenger door, and front seat headrests have tablet mounts for back-seat entertainment.

The car also has the largest "frunk" I've seen on a Chinese EV: 105 liters of space hidden under the hood.

For a car from a company that had never produced a vehicle before this year, the SU7 simply shouldn't drive this well. In fact, it is one of the best-handling Chinese EVs I've driven to date. Although my test didn't really push the car that hard, it remained stable when cornering at speed and felt like it could be thrown around corners thanks to firm, well-weighted steering.

On paper, the Max version has formidable performance, with a 0-62mph acceleration time of just 2.78 seconds. However, that requires "Launch Control" mode and my test conditions didn't feel safe enough to try it. I did try flooring it from a standstill in the Sport mode, though, and that was certainly fast enough.

The Max is the only version to use a dual-motor setup. The single-motor versions do the dash in a pedestrian in 5.28 seconds.

Along with the Pro version, the Max is equipped with lidar and a suite of other sensors and can provide what is known for legal reasons as "driving assistance."

Unlike Tesla, most Chinese companies use lidar — a laser-based ranging device used for detecting objects on the road.

Despite having driven many Chinese cars with such systems, Xiaomi would only let me experience the system as a passenger for safety reasons. While it seems to work, the limited demonstration left me feeling it doesn't function as well as the systems from Huawei and XPeng.

A supercar at everyday prices

Xiaomi sold out of this year's planned production run within days of the SU7 going on sale in March. It's increased production to 20,000 cars a month and is having no difficulty finding buyers.

From my limited test drive, I can see the appeal very well: it's a supercar at everyday prices. My test car came in at a bargain $41,500 equivalent in renminbi, and the range starts at an even more affordable $29,900.

While the SU7 was on display at the Paris auto show this summer, don't get too excited — you won't be able to buy one outside China anytime soon.

Apple rival Xiaomi, the world's third-largest smartphone maker, launched its first car earlier this year in China. The SU7 starts at less than $30,000 and has proved popular, with the 2024 production run selling out in days. Is the SU7 worth the hype? Business Insider takes a closer look at the EV, which is only available in China.

• China's Tesla rivals are booming, with BYD, Nio, and Zeekr all breaking sales records.
• Despite their success, many Chinese automakers continue to lose money.
• Nio reported a widening net loss in its latest earnings, as the CEO of Xpeng warns many EV firms face a fight to survive.

China's Tesla rivals might be booming, but they're still losing money.

Nio, Zeekr, Xiaomi, and Xpeng have all broken personal sales records in recent months. Xpeng delivered 24,000 vehicles last month, and Xiaomi sold over 100,000 of its SU7 EV this year alone.

However, the booming sales come as many Chinese EV makers continue to report heavy losses, as they grapple with a brutal price war and intense pressure to quickly launch new affordable models amid a crowded field of battery-electric vehicles.

EV startup Nio, known for its battery-swapping stations and run by CEO William Li, sometimes dubbed "the Elon Musk of China," reported widening losses in its Q3 earnings on Wednesday.

The company reported a net loss of 5.06 billion yuan ($700 million), up 11% from the third quarter of 2023.

Shares plunged nearly 7% in the hours after the announcement, despite Nio delivering 61,800 vehicles in the past three months, a new quarterly record for the company.

The company has been hit hard by the price war that has gripped the Chinese market for much of the past year. Nio said vehicle sales had fallen despite record deliveries due to lower average selling prices.

Nio's rivals reported a similar blend of booming deliveries and painfully high losses.

Zeekr delivered a record 55,000 vehicles in the third quarter, up over 50% from last year, while fellow EV startup Xpeng recorded record sales of its electric vehicles in October.

Both companies narrowed their net losses year-over-year, but they remained sizable at 1.81 billion yuan ($250 million) for Xpeng and 1.14 billion yuan ($157 million) for Zeekr, respectively.

Xpeng's shares fell amid concern that the company's upcoming affordable models may dilute selling prices and margins.

Smartphone maker Xiaomi, which has pivoted into EVs and received acclaim from Ford CEO Jim Farley, announced it was upping its sales target for its high-tech SU7 electric vehicle after selling over 100,000 this year.

Despite this, the tech giant continues to lose money on its EV venture.

A fight to survive

Xpeng CEO He Xiaopeng told Singaporean newspaper The Straits Times that the competitive pressure means most Chinese carmakers will not survive the next decade.

"From 300 start-ups, only 100 of them survived. Today, there are fewer than 50 companies that still exist, and only 40 of them are actually selling cars every year," he said.

"I personally think that there will only be seven major car companies that will exist in the coming 10 years," Xiaopeng added.

One company that is not having the same problems is Tesla's nemesis BYD.

The automaker posted bumper revenues in its Q3 earnings last month, outstripping Elon Musk's company in quarterly sales for the first time, and recorded a profit.

BYD's net profit rose 11.5% from the previous quarter to 11.6 billion yuan ($1.6 billion), and it also sold a record number of vehicles in the third quarter. It's its success comes as Tesla's sales in China slip, with the company's October deliveries down 5.3% from the same month last year.

Analysts previously told Business Insider that BYD was reaping the benefits of its strong hybrid lineup and that its manufacturing approach of making almost every component in-house enabled the company to keep costs low.

"BYD's high degree of vertical integration — making rather than buying many key strategic components — means it can control production of batteries and chips and can do so at very low cost," David Bailey, a professor of business economics at the University of Birmingham, told BI.