One of the world’s smartphone-making majors, Xiaomi, expects to break into the ever-expanding electric vehicle market in establishing a Beijing plant capable of producing as many as 300,000 vehicles a year, from as soon as 2024.
On Saturday, the Beijing-based corporation signed an agreement with the committee of the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Zone to land the ambitious car project in Yizhuang, a suburb southeast of the Chinese capital.
The new plant will be built in two phases with Xiaomi to create its auto unit’s headquarters, sales and research offices as well, the local government announced in a WeChat post.
In March, the company announced plans to invest up to $10 billion in a new e-vehicle enterprise over the near decade. Xiaomi completed the business registration of its EV unit in late August. The firm pledged to start the manufacturing process for its first electric cars by 2023 in order to release the EV in the market by early 2024.
Earlier this year, Xiaomi acquired an autonomous-driving-focused startup called Deepmotion and is reportedly expected to launch a subsidiary to further increase the pace of the project. Meanwhile, some 500 employees out of nearly 14,000 working in the company’s research and development (R&D) wing are currently focused on the EV project, according to the recent financial report.