Xiaomi's SU7 Ultra set to hit the road

Reuters and Gordon Yang

The luxury version of Xiaomi's (1810) flagship electric vehicle, the SU7 Ultra, will be launched at the end of February, with a sales target of 10,000 units for this year, founder Lei Jun said on his RedNote account yesterday.

Meanwhile, XPeng (9868) chief executive He Xiaopeng expressed confidence in doubling annual deliveries by 2025, after the company led emerging EV makers in January with 30,350 vehicles delivered, a remarkable 268 percent year-on-year surge.

He also announced plans to achieve L3-level autonomous driving by the second half of the year, supported by a projected research and development investment of 9.5 billion yuan (HK$10.2 billion), of which approximately 4.5 billion yuan will be dedicated to artificial intelligence.

Highlighting XPeng's core strength in autonomous driving, He predicted that the technology will fundamentally transform China's automotive industry over the next five years, much like the impact of new-energy vehicles in recent years.

In other automotive news, Japan's Nissan may call off its merger talks with Honda.

Its board is due to meet in the near future to decide a course of action, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Honda, Japan's second-largest carmaker, and Nissan, its third-largest, last year said they were in discussions to merge and create the world's third-largest automaker by sales, bulking up in an industry that faces a vast threat from China's BYD (1211) and other EV entrants. However, the talks have been complicated by growing differences on both sides, according to two people familiar with the matter, both of whom declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media.