Comparison of Lei Jun’s statements
On the evening of March 29, 2025, a Xiaomi SU7 was on the highway, and due to road repairs ahead, it needed to borrow a lane from oncoming traffic. In a relatively complex road condition, the Xiaomi SU7’s intelligent assisted driving (NOA) system failed, collided with concrete barriers, causing the battery to catch fire; at the same time, a high-speed collision caused serious deformation of the chassis structure, making it impossible to open the doors normally; resulting in three female college students on board being unable to escape and tragically burned alive in the flames.
In response to this incident, the Weibo account “Xiaomi Company Spokesperson” stated: “The vehicle was in NOA intelligent assisted driving mode before the accident, continuing to drive at 116 km/h. Due to construction repairs on the road section, barriers were used to close the lane, and the vehicle was rerouted to the opposite lane. After detecting an obstacle, the system issued a warning and began to slow down. The driver then took over and entered manual mode, continuing to decelerate and steer the vehicle, which then collided with the concrete barrier. The last confirmed speed before the collision was about 97 km/h.” It seems that the entire accident process was like this: before the accident, the NOA system detected an anomaly, switched to manual driving mode, and the driver’s misoperation led to the accident. However, looking at the summary of the accident timeline provided by the “Xiaomi spokesperson,” we find that at 22:44:24 and 24 seconds that night, a risk warning was issued saying “Please pay attention to obstacles ahead,” and the system began to slow down; at 22:44:25, it entered manual mode; and the accident occurred between 22:44:26-28 seconds. That is to say, only a full (!) 2-3 seconds passed after the warning was issued for the driver to operate, which is why some netizens joked: as long as the driver exited the intelligent driving system before the accident, it shows that the problem wasn’t with the intelligent driving system.
Statement issued by “Xiaomi spokesperson”
Naturally, in the face of such a major public opinion storm, Xiaomi Group CEO Lei Jun also issued a statement on Weibo, claiming that he was “deeply saddened,” and expressed “deep condolences” and “sincere sympathy” to the victims’ families, and immediately established a special working group to cooperate with police investigations. However, a victim’s father said: “It has been four days since the accident, and Xiaomi has not contacted us proactively. The customer service department’s statements to the family and the outside world are different from the actual situation.”
Lei Jun’s statement
Currently, no capitalist enterprise has taken responsibility for this incident, which remains in a long “investigation phase.” The families have not received the compensation they deserve, and even if they did, under capitalism, it is just cold monetary compensation, far from alleviating the grief in the hearts of the victims’ friends and relatives. In fact, this accident was caused by the consequences of false advertising aimed at justifying product monopolization prices under capitalism. Technically, the accident was caused by the failure of the intelligent driving system and AEB (Automatic Emergency Braking), battery spontaneous combustion, and vehicle structural damage, all of which Xiaomi previously heavily promoted. This false advertising led to the incident.
1. Is the “intelligent” driving (assisted) system really intelligent?
The mother of the victim mentioned that she advised her daughter not to trust the intelligent driving system too much, but her daughter emphasized the convenience and safety of the system. Even after her mother’s advice, her daughter still used “various safety proofs” to refute. In fact, during Xiaomi SU7’s launch, its intelligent driving system (note, no “assisted” in the name, and no such description on the official website) was heavily praised. Xiaomi claimed in its promotion that “they have driven all the highways nationwide,” and Lei Jun himself said at the “China Electric Vehicle Hundred People’s Forum” that Xiaomi had achieved “end-to-end autonomous driving.” But why does the NOA system fail in common highway situations like lane borrowing from oncoming traffic? Clearly, the victim was also deeply misled by this hype.
No “assisted” words in Xiaomi’s official website’s intelligent driving section
Intelligent driving features mentioned at Xiaomi’s launch
Additionally, Xiaomi claimed that the SU7 could: “respond to road changes in real-time, accurately generate driving guidance lines,” and could identify obstacles with extremely high precision. But why did these functions fail at the moment of the incident? The vehicle involved was the standard version of Xiaomi SU7, which had many features cut compared to the pro and ultra versions, mainly in computing power, only 84 TOPS, which is 16% of the other versions, and it lacked integrated laser sensors (which are generally more accurate than image data and require less data processing). Not only did the NOA system fail to recognize road conditions correctly, but the AEB system also did not perform emergency braking.
Comparison of Xiaomi SU7 versions’ intelligent driving configurations
According to Xiaomi’s response, the standard version of Xiaomi SU7’s forward collision avoidance includes collision warning and emergency braking, targeting vehicles, pedestrians, and bicycles, with a working speed of 8-135 km/h, currently not responding to obstacles like cones, water-filled barriers, stones, or animals.
Netizens pointed out that after a year of release, they only now learned that AEB has limitations. Therefore, the failure of the NOA system and AEB could likely be due to the low computing power and poor data accuracy of the Xiaomi SU7 standard version (previous reports indicated that Xiaomi’s AEB system also failed at 60 km/h, causing accidents). Xiaomi’s level of “intelligent” driving is highly questionable. Xiaomi and Lei Jun clearly did not explain the specific functions of the standard version’s intelligent driving.
2. Is the armor hybrid body really sturdy?
Xiaomi boasted about its self-developed “Xiaomi Titan Alloy,” claiming it “balances strength, toughness, and stability.” However, according to a Xiaomi patent, only tensile and yield strengths could be calculated (comparing with aerospace aluminum, which balances strength and toughness), and no information was provided about toughness or stability. Moreover, Xiaomi claimed its chassis was an “armor cage steel-aluminum hybrid body,” comparable in strength to submarine materials.
Xiaomi’s promotional ad about body strength
But this statement is vague: by literal understanding, it refers to the failure strength, which for high-strength alloy steel can reach 2000 MPa, making further praise unnecessary. Strength is an intrinsic property of materials, related to composition and heat treatment, not the vehicle’s structure. If there were any innovations in this area, Xiaomi would have heavily promoted them, but they did not. Additionally, lithium batteries can spontaneously ignite under external impact, so the yield strength of the chassis or the stress-strain state at structural failure is more important (stress measures the concentration of force, in Pascals, MPa in vehicle engineering, indicating how much force per unit area). Structural failure strength is crucial in designing new energy vehicles to prevent battery fires during accidents and ensure the stability of door structures if self-ignition occurs. But in reality, such “high-strength” chassis cannot guarantee that the battery won’t catch fire or that doors can be safely opened during an accident. Xiaomi has not made any statements about materials in such safety-critical issues. This advertising creates a false impression of solid, high-strength, safe materials, which is another form of false advertising.
(Additional note: the mention of torsional stiffness is also a rhetorical device. Torsional stiffness depends primarily on the elastic modulus, an intrinsic material property, but also on the geometry of the cross-section. By choosing a section with the largest moment of inertia as a reference, the data can be manipulated, making the number meaningless. Xiaomi’s promotion might seem impressive to those unfamiliar with mechanics, but a detailed analysis reveals many opportunities for manipulation.)
Besides false advertising, during the investigation, some “industry insiders” said that designing a “redundant” structure on the doors would increase costs by 300-500 yuan per vehicle, yet the standard version of Xiaomi SU7 costs 215,900 yuan.
3. Is the hardcore lithium iron battery really safe?
Due to frequent spontaneous battery fires in new energy vehicles, Xiaomi SU7 heavily promotes its battery safety measures. First, it claims Xiaomi’s batteries have “14 layers” of physical protection; second, it designed a “battery cell inversion technology” that can spray fuel downward when the battery naturally ignites, maximizing passenger safety; third, it claims Xiaomi developed an “advanced warning system” that can cut off current within 4 milliseconds in emergencies.
However, the facts show that multi-layer physical protection did not prevent impact to the battery cell, the cell inversion did not trigger spontaneous combustion, and the warning system did not cut off current to prevent battery fires. This indicates that this so-called structural protection was ineffective. Investigations also revealed that a “Xiaomi internal staff” claimed that the “battery cell inversion technology” was not used on the Xiaomi SU7. On the official website, the safety configurations of all versions of Xiaomi SU7 are identical.
Furthermore, after the incident, CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited), one of Xiaomi’s battery suppliers, responded in investor Q&A that the “self-igniting batteries” are “not our batteries.” BYD Fudi Battery also said, “Questions about Xiaomi SU7 can be directed to Xiaomi’s official channels; BYD cannot directly answer.” Moreover, some sources indicate Xiaomi did not purchase original batteries but reassembled lithium iron phosphate cells after purchase. It is foreseeable that mutual evasion between the two major battery manufacturers and Xiaomi will greatly hinder the investigation of the incident’s truth.
CATL’s response in investor Q&A
Why is there such a heinous false advertising?
Today, bourgeois vulgar economists often confuse use value and exchange value, claiming “utility” determines a product’s value, and confuse “utility” with subjective feelings. But this concept is practically foundational: monopoly capital, to justify high monopoly prices, must use various means to beautify and exaggerate their products. Xiaomi does this by beautifying its SU7 in these three aspects, misleading and even deceiving consumers.
Xiaomi has often portrayed itself as offering high cost-performance and good conscience, but this is also aimed at corrupting small-bourgeois luxury consumption—satisfying the small bourgeoisie’s desire for a bourgeois luxury lifestyle without the huge expenses. Xiaomi SU7 is similarly promoted heavily in safety, performance, interior, and body design, fabricating various “utilities” subjectively to justify its high monopoly prices. Behind this fabricated “utility,” however, is a neglect of truly important driving safety. Such propaganda makes people believe the car is safe, which is the most basic requirement. This kind of false advertising is the real murderer behind this accident. This neglect of safety is also reflected after the accident, where Xiaomi Group shows urgent concern to the public but also attempts to shift responsibility onto the driver in official statements. The battery suppliers also refuse to take responsibility or investigate, which is another form of shirking. Clearly, Xiaomi, praised by “netizens,” and the “national heavy weapon” of new energy batteries, reveal a hypocritical face of deceiving the people and exploiting them.
