Wait, did Temu make a Ferrari?

I know, I’m late to the news of Chinese cell phone manufacturer Xiaomi introducing their new YU7 electric SUV. But I have a good reason for that: I was on vacation, and therefore not connected to the internet.

When my internet connection came back online, the news articles of Xiaomi blatantly ripping of Ferrari in terms of the design of the YU7, slapped me in the eyes more than a couple of times. What I noticed is that the general consensus was that the rip-off was a good thing. This new EV would become the Ferrari for the masses.

Reading this, required multiple rubbings of the eyes, because usually when a Chinese company copies a design of a well regarded Western company, all hell breaks loose.

What I found even more funny, was that while the Ferrari Purosangue was received as one of the ugliest Ferrari’s ever, the YU7 seems to be a beautiful car. That could be because the back of the Chinese car is clearly a rip-off of the Aston Martin DBX? Also seen as not the most attractive part of that car. Either two uglies make a beauty, or the fact that an ‘ugly’, but very exclusive design is all of sudden within reach, makes it not so ugly? You figure out which is at play here.

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Either way, a Chinese company copying others is nothing to be surprised about. The issue lies more in the way they do it. It’s usually not up to the standards of the originals. And for some products that isn’t an issue, but I think for cars it is. Especially when the copy has more performance than the original.

And that is where I have some doubts in Xiaomi. I don’t have any personal experience with cars of the brand, but from what I’ve been reading and hearing, is that there are some issues. Even with the new YU7.

The newest Xiaomi was tested on track and after a blistering section, the brakes caught fire while it was in the pits. The pads reached a temperature of around 700 degrees Celsius, at which they decided to spontaneously combust. According to Xiaomi that was to be expected and the driver was to blame since he had the car in the wrong setting. If he had chosen the right one, the car would have relied on the regenerative braking more and put less stress on the brake pads, which in turn would not have gotten so hot. The company confirmed the brakes, even when this hot, remained fully operational.

It isn’t the first time Xiaomi had some issues with braking. The SU7, the performance sedan of the company, ended up in the crash barriers during a race on track. The brakes completely failed in this instance and it turned out that the large Brembo-covers were mostly for show. Under them were brakes that were simply not up to the task of stopping a car doing high speeds. At that crash, it also showed that the interior wasn’t as rigid as you’d hope it to be in a car that can outrace a Ferrari. The seat almost completely collapsed in the crash, which really shouldn’t have happened.

I’m also casting doubt on the ‘impressive’ tech in the car. Why? Because Xiaomi has been one of the companies that has been the most vocal about the self driving abilities of their cars. At least, that was until a SU7 crashed into a barrier killing three people. The crash was so bad, the Chinese government changed the regulations for self driving cars and made them a lot less lenient.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying the Ferrari Purosangue is perfect and it probably isn’t the safest car out there. But I would be a tad more confident getting behind the wheel of the Italian Thoroughbred for a lap around Silverstone, than I would be if I had to do the same thing in the YU7.

When Chinese companies copy stuff from others, I usually get the Temu-jitters. In this case, the short history of Xiaomi in the car business isn’t really taking that away. But apparently I’m the only one, because the car has been pre-ordered over 200.000 times in just 3(!) minutes.

That’s it from me today,

Cheers!

Mr. Wilman

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In other news:

Tesla’s highly original, and yet to be copied by a Chinese company, Cyberbrick isn’t really selling that well. Last quarter only about 5.000 humans were blackmailed into buying one. That is a lot less than the more than 60.000 a quarter Tesla was counting on. Also, does anyone know what happened to that more than a million pre-orders that where confirmed in a publicly editable excel-sheet? No one?

F1 gossip: Max Verstappen is going to leave Red Bull in favor of Mercedes for 2026, says some Italian publication. There seems to be only one hurdle to take: Toto Wolff needs to convince the Mercedes board it’s a good thing to give Russell the boot and hire Verstappen instead. The move doesn’t really seem to make sense to a lot of people, including me. But we’ve seen weirder things in F1, like Hamilton in Red…

Having an SUV being copied is one thing that Ferrari probably saw coming, the fact that their clientele wants physical buttons, not so much. But weirdly enough, the Italians aren’t taking their usual “no, you’re wrong”-route and actually saying less buttons was a bad move. They are even going a step further and letting Ferrari-owners without buttons in their cars, order the buttons and retrofitting them to the cars. Not for free though, Ferrari wasn’t THAT wrong… I’m also going to argue that this is something more car manufacturers should offer. I’ve driven a lot of cars that could do with a few more buttons.