Why spend millions on an autonomous sports car?

Teaching an artificial intelligence the science of sporty driving is of course an achievement, but what is its usefulness?

The Xiaomi SU7 in its most extreme definition recently set the Nürburgring record for a four-door car. This monster measuring 5 meters long and weighing 2.3 tons is powered by three in-house electric motors delivering a combined power of 1,548 horsepower. This allows the SU7 Ultra to accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in 1.97 seconds and reach a top speed exceeding 350 km/h. Exactly 359.71 km/h, a peak recorded during testing at the CATARC Yan Cheng Automotive Proving Ground, a highly modern testing facility located in China’s Jiangsu province. Aside from adding a paragraph to the article, you are probably wondering about the significance of presenting this test track. Its importance lies in the fact that this testing ground is favored by the biggest Chinese automakers for developing their autonomous vehicles.

Although the Xiaomi SU7 has only been on the market for 230 days, 100,000 units have already been sold. A well-deserved success because this car offers an unbeatable quality/performance/price ratio. The true nemesis of Tesla, according to Elon Musk himself. It is also equipped with Xiaomi’s hyper-autonomous driving system (HAD) as standard.

It is precisely this system that has been undergoing extreme testing for the past few days in preparation for deployment scheduled for December. A particularly tight timetable that motivated Xiaomi to test the technology under the most extreme conditions possible, and what better way than with a monster of power and speed that chases records? The goal is not to compete with other manufacturers in autonomous car races but to accelerate the development of embedded systems. And it’s worth several million yuan, dollars, or euros.

ALSO READ: BYD humbles Tesla with its autonomous technology