Xiaomi SU7 Ultra Uses Qualcomm Tech And Showcases The Massive Advantage The Chinese EV Companies Are Gaining. While the base SU7 starts at under $40K The Ultra Costs $112K with a whopping 1,526 HP and a sub 2 second 0-60

The EV wars are getting ugly. Xiaomi recently announced its SU7 Ultra 4-door supercar, which is a beast on paper. Chinese car quality used to be pretty poor, but that time has passed, and today, Chinese car quality is arguably better than Tesla’s.

While Tesla continues to lose market share at an impressive rate, Xiaomi is ramping up. Currently, the SU7 (not the Ultra, which isn’t selling yet) outsells the Tesla Model 3 in China and has been doing so all year.

Comparing The Xiaomi SU7 Ultra To the Audi E-Tron GT

I drive a fully loaded 2022 E-Tron GT, which cost around $130K when new and had around 550 HP and 240 miles of range. The Xiaomi SU7 Ultra costs far less, at $112K, and it has 1,500 HP and nearly 500 miles of range. Audi’s quality is superior to Tesla’s, but Xiaomi’s is in line with Audi’s.

This means that for substantially less than I paid for my Audi, I could have had performance that would have been higher than the new Audi E-Tron GT Performance which comes in closer to $170k. Granted, I can buy the Audi and, as of this writing, due to import restrictions, I can’t buy the Xiaomi, but even against Audi quality, the SU7 and while the Audi has 10 seconds of over 900 HP, the Xiaomi appears to have no such time limitation.

Both cars are very comfortable and have a host of features. Audi uses NVIDIA for their driver assistance technology while Xiaomi uses Qualcomm. NVIDIA’s technology tends to be more graphics intensive and often prettier, while Qualcomm’s tends to be faster and often uses wireless technology far more aggressively. Both companies do support wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

The SU7 Ultra and the E-Tron Performance have carbon fiber roof options for weight, though I prefer the sunroof. However, the SU7 has rolled out an AI voice assistant, which every car will likely have in the next few years. Audi is still using the more basic voice command (where you have to learn phrases to do things rather than using AI's natural language interface).

Other SU7 Ultra Features

The SU7 has a 40-watt external speaker for use if you want to use your car as a boom box or piss off your neighbors. And, for the track, a Racetrack Master app provides real-time lap results for benchmarking your track time, and both the ability to share videos and data between cars and pull from historical data to compare you to other drivers on that same track. In addition, there are custom modes for the track, which include beginner, economy, wet, sport, and custom mode. Track mode will be disabled until you obtain a track qualifying certificate. I’ve heard and watched people in powerful cars like this wreck them on test drives or within a few miles of leaving the dealership when they find the performance they bought is well beyond their driving skill set. One Aston Martin driver barely made it out of the dealer lot when he spun the car, and they returned it as too dangerous.

Xiaomi has also implemented a new battery pack coating that it claims is bulletproof and far denser than other PVC coatings. Given that damaged battery packs have caused most EV fires, better protection for them makes a lot of sense.

Wrapping Up: The Xiaomi SU7 Ultra May Be The Best Supercar Deal In The World

What is impressive, if not a bit scary, is that the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra may be the most powerful supercar under $1M and it could likely beat some of the cars that sell for over this amount. It is very similar to an Audi E-Tron GT and the Porsche Taycan in terms of size and looks but could dust both cars with half again as much horsepower and none of the time limitations on using that performance.

What is particularly scary is that Xiaomi is new to the car market and yet they are already out executing companies like Audi, Porsche, and Tesla. China is well on track to take over the car market as it moves to EVs over the next few year.

Rob Enderle is a technology analyst at Torque News who covers automotive technology and battery developments. You can learn more about Rob on Wikipedia and follow his articles on Forbes, X, and LinkedIn.