I visited the Xiaomi car experience store around 9 a.m. There were very few people in the store, which is quite rare. When I got there, I noticed that the sales staff were mostly young. I mentioned that I was from the media, had limited time, and wanted to test drive the car first. The sales staff were very enthusiastic and efficient. Within two or three minutes, after entering my number on their phone, they took me to test drive the Max dual-motor version.
I started with a test ride.
In my impression, the dual-motor version is aimed at competing with Tesla's Model 3 Performance. So, during the experience, I wanted to focus on the performance aspect. I asked the sales rep to accelerate. The acceleration wasn't particularly strong because the car was in default comfort mode. There are also sport mode, sport+ mode, and a beginner mode, which are quite interesting and worth experiencing.
Additionally, the tactile feel of the physical buttons inside the car is very good. The rotating feel is somewhat similar to German cars, with a certain degree of resistance. Even the touch buttons provide feedback through vibrations.
Some people are concerned about the rear space. I'm 1.76 meters tall, and when I sit in the front driver's seat in a normal driving position without moving the front seat, I can comfortably cross my legs in the back seat.
Next, I had the test drive and I'll talk about the overall feel of the car.
I think the Xiaomi SU7 is well-made and can be considered a high-completion product. The overall workmanship is quite good, but there were two things that puzzled me a bit during the test drive.
The first issue is its intelligent driving.
According to the sales rep, the intelligent driving is not fully enabled yet, and city intelligent driving is not available in Nanjing. Therefore, I could only use its L2 level assisted driving. During the L2 level assisted driving, a few small issues arose.
One issue was that the car should maintain its lane center, but suddenly I noticed it drifting. I quickly corrected it. According to normal logic, even if it exits intelligent driving, there should be an alert, but there wasn't one. I asked the sales rep about it, and he seemed puzzled as well. He said there should have been an alert. I wondered if we missed it while chatting or if there was another reason.
Another issue is with the car's braking and acceleration response while following another car. The granularity is quite rough.
Currently, I think its intelligent driving level is still at an early stage, similar to Huawei's ADS 1.0. and needs further improvement.
Then there’s the automatic parking.
The sales rep confidently told me how strong and efficient the automatic parking is, claiming it has a very high reversing efficiency and fast speed. So, I decided to test it. During the test, a security guard came over to guide me, thinking my car was stuck. I told him I was testing the automatic parking and asked him to step back a bit. After he stepped back, another driver walked by, causing the car to stop again. After two interruptions, it took 1 minute and 13 seconds to complete the parking, which was quite good.
Apart from intelligent driving, since I was testing the dual-motor version, I definitely had to experience the acceleration.
I think the official claim of 2.78 seconds for 0-100 km/h acceleration is not as aggressive in this car. It doesn't feel as fierce as the Tesla Model 3 Performance or the Porsche Taycan. However, the tuning of the pedal feel and the chassis suspension is very similar to a sports car. The throttle and brake pedals are somewhat heavy in any mode, rather than being light and making the car jump forward with a slight touch.
Overall, I think there are no major issues with driving this car.
