Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker Xiaomi Corp (小米) said it would cooperate with a police investigation into a fatal crash involving one of its cars, which had been in autonomous mode just before the accident.
Three college students died on Saturday night after their Xiaomi SU7 hit a concrete barrier on a section of the Dezhou-Shangrao Expressway in China’s Anhui Province.
Before the crash, the vehicle was in Xiaomi’s Navigate On Autopilot assisted driving mode, traveling at 116kph, a company statement posted online showed.
Photo: Reuters
While travelling on a highway section with roadworks, the vehicle detected an obstacle ahead, issued a warning and handed control to the driver, Xiaomi said.
However, seconds later, the vehicle hit a barrier at about 97kph.
Footage posted online showed a car in flames on the highway and later the burned-out wreckage.
Xiaomi founder Lei Jun (雷軍) said in a social media post late on Tuesday that he was “heavy-hearted” and that his company would “continue to cooperate with the police investigation.”
Since the crash, many have questioned Xiaomi’s assisted driving functions, why the car caught fire and whether the doors could be opened in an emergency.
On Sina Weibo, an account identified by the platform and local media as the driver’s mother accused Xiaomi of failing to contact her and “not taking the lives of three kids seriously.”
“As family members, we have many questions. Why did the vehicle catch fire after hitting the barrier?... We just want an explanation,” the woman wrote.
Xiaomi, a consumer electronics giant selling goods from smartphones to vacuum cleaners, launched the SU7 in March last year as it entered the auto sector.
It sold more than 200,000 units in its first year, with the standard model priced at about 210,000 yuan (US$28,935).
The company’s share price yesterday dropped 3 percent in Hong Kong, extending Tuesday’s fall of more than 5 percent.
Xiaomi last month raised this year’s delivery target for EVs to 350,000 units after posting its fastest revenue growth since 2021.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
RSS