Xiaomi's car to launch in 3 years at the earliest, says founder

Xiaomi’s car business could launch a product as soon as three years from now, the Chinese smartphone giant’s founder and CEO Lei Jun said in a March 30 interview with CCTV.

Xiaomi did a lot of research and evaluation work in the past 75 days before finally deciding to have Lei personally lead the team, he said, adding that many people supported Xiaomi to build a car and others warned about the risks of building a car.

Lei, who has invested in nearly a dozen companies in the smart electric vehicle space since 2013, called the Xiaomi car build his last major venture.

Xiaomi hasn’t decided on a name for the car brand yet because it will take three years to make an electric car at the earliest, and “getting the product right first is the most important thing,” Lei said.

Xiaomi announced its entry into the smart electric car market on March 30 with an expected investment of $10 billion over 10 years, with an initial installment of 10 billion yuan ($1.52 billion).

Now the global shortage of chips, including cell phone chips, may last for two years, so consumers will feel that electronic products are getting more and more expensive and difficult to buy, Lei said in the interview.

BREAKING: Xiaomi confirms launch of electric car business, to invest $10 billion over next decade