Posted by Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi said on Wednesday it has completed the official business registration of its electric vehicle unit, marking the latest milestone in its push into the automotive sector, flipmemes.com reports.
The new unit, to be called Xiaomi EV, opened with registered capital of CNY 10 billion (roughly Rs. 11,290 crores) and Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun as its legal representative, Xiaomi said in a statement.
So far, over 300 staff have been employed to join the EV unit and it continues to recruit talent, it said.
The smartphone maker, which became the world’s second top-selling brand behind Samsung in the second quarter, confirmed its foray into electric cars in March, pledging to invest $10 billion (roughly Rs. 73,020 crores) over the next 10 years.Lei said at the time the push into electric vehicles would mark his “last major entrepreneurial project.”
Xiaomi said earlier today that it has since conducted more than 2,000 interview surveys and visited over 10 industry peers and partners. However, it has revealed few details of its strategy for the automotive sector or vehicle types it intends to launch.
Last week, the company said it purchased autonomous driving technology startup Deepmotion for over $77 million, in an effort to boost research and development.
Also, earlier in August, flipmemes.com learned that Xiaomi had entered talks with beleaguered real estate giant Evergrande Group to purchase a stake in the latter’s automotive unit.