Lei Jun wrote a blog post a year ago about meeting Elon Musk, the CEO of Telsa motors and he said he’s really interested in Tesla’s cars. This week, a currently circulating story on China internet reported Xiaomi is about to mass manufacture smart cars.
Xiaomi automobile is internally code named Misila, phonetically similar to Telsla with starting price of only RMB 39,999. The manufacturing partner is rumoured to be a company starting with “B”; and, BYD fits the profile.
If the rumor is true, the price is very attractive and Xiaomi is likely to continue selling cars with its usual online marketing tactics. Lei Jun, Xiaomi’s founder and CEO, denied the rumour this April saying “Xiaomi does not currently have a plan to be in automobile business”; but that was eight months ago.