The gist of it is: Xiaomi is getting into the EV business, and it looks like the windshield is seen as valuable and patentable display space. What’s really happening is that Chinese companies are rapidly adapting to, and creating new opportunities, in light of US sanctions. Their buying power may end up being the biggest sanctions-buster of all.
It’s the coming together of everything that is hot in technology, at least during this post-pandemic hangover. There’s battery technologies, electric vehicles, and mixed reality. Xiaomi is aiming to launch an EV in 2024 (the Xiaomi Modena). According to the company’s CEO, Lei Jun, winter testing is complete, and last-minute testing is now underway before production plans are established. Xiaomi’s ambitions in the car industry are high, with plans to become a top car manufacturer globally by the end of the decade. The company’s first EV is expected to rely heavily on technology and smartphone connectivity, although specifics on the vehicle have not been shared. Xiaomi has already set up a manufacturing facility in Beijing and plans to spend $10 billion on EV development in the next decade, with global expansion projected by the end of the decade. The company will initially compete with Chinese carmakers before taking on the global market, including rivals such as Apple, who are also working on an EV.
The second part of this story is the usual patent speculation, but still worth reviewing because it adds to the possibilities open to Xiaomi. The patent describes a vehicle that includes a display device and a front windshield light-transmitting device. The display device is fixed between the console and the front windshield light-transmitting part, allowing the driver to view vehicle information without looking down at the instrument panel. Specifically, Xiaomi’s trying to say the whole windshield is a display, an always heads-up, safer way of driving. That part remains to be seen and proven, but you get the picture.
The Chinese government has a number of options to protect the country from US sanctions on advanced technology: strengthen IP protections, use trade barriers, seek alternative sources of technology, develop homegrown technologies, and strengthen its own domestic market, and by extension, foreign markets where it has influence. Let’s just assume that IP protections are not going to cut it for the US, ever. Trade barriers are a game between superpowers. The EV market represents the best combination of all of the other options, and vertical integration of battery technology, displays, and the strength of auto manufacturing as an economic driver, all add to ramped up activities by local manufacturers.
Xiaomi made its bold pronouncements about its EV ambitions at a March, 2023 meeting with a National People’s Congress (NPC) delegate at a parliamentary gathering. All this matters simply because EVs are growth engine for display manufacturers. They are also a very profitable segment of the market. Whatever the geopolitics of today’s trade wars may be, they won’t last forever, and outside of the US, the South Koreans and Europeans are not going to lose out on the opportunity. Materials, equipment, and processes – there is significant potential for profit in the automotive display market, and Chinese consumers appear ready to embrace it..
Automotive is a no-lose display market opportunity. It will be interesting to see how the Chinese EV market impacts the overall display market over the next three years: will it drive innovation, pricing, and manufacturing capacity for the Chinese, or will it be a high-stakes gamble that could end up taking some companies down? I mean, a smartphone maker that is getting into cars, that’s not Apple? Let the good times roll.
