Enticing new electric vehicles are emerging out of China on an almost weekly basis but of those to debut in the latter half of this year, few have created as much hype as the new Xiaomi SU7.
Unlike most new EVs from China, the SU7 does not come from an automotive conglomerate like Geely, GAC, or Great Wall but rather from Xiaomi, the world’s third-largest manufacturer of smartphones and a company specializing in home electronics. It has been roughly three years since Xiaomi first announced its plans to venture into the EV space and it believes it can be one of the world’s five largest carmakers within the next 15-20 years.
Read: Xiaomi SU7 Will Outrun A Porsche Taycan And Outlast A Tesla Model S
Xiaomi has laden the SU7 with plenty of advanced electronics and as part of the promo for the car, has released a particularly intriguing video that shows it parking autonomously in a multi-level parking garage somewhere in China.
The video shows the driver of the SU7 pulling up to the entrance of the parking garage before tapping a button on the infotainment screen and hopping out. The car then proceeds to enter the garage and autonomously drives up the different levels. At one stage, it comes nose-to-nose with an Audi A7 but reverses out of the Audi’s way and continues on its way to the top level of the parking area. It is then able to find an appropriate parking space and reverses into it.
It’s unclear if the parking garage used in the demonstration has been specially equipped to enable vehicles to park themselves like this or if the software of the SU7 was pre-mapped before the test. If the SU7 was able to navigate the parking complex without any prior mapping and relying solely on its sensors, then that would be quite impressive.
Xiaomi has equipped the SU7 with lidar, cameras, and radar and has confirmed it will launch with hands-off freeway driving functions and auto-parking. The software stack will then be updated to include self-driving on city streets.
