On December 15, an accident occurred at the Xiaomi Hangzhou Xiasa Delivery Center, where a Xiaomi SU7 Max owner allegedly accidentally accelerated and hit a salesperson on site. The police have confirmed the accident at the Hangzhou Xiaomi delivery center, but have not disclosed whether the person involved died on the spot.
According to online reports, the car owner was a new user picking up their car for the first time, while the victim, Xia, was an employee of Zhongsheng Company who was squatting in a corner when the incident happened.
A video circulating on Weibo shows a man in a suit collapsing in front of a private car, with several people performing CPR on him urgently.
The incident took place near the entrance of Mingma Automobile Town Zhongsheng Hangzhou Automobile Maintenance Service Co., Ltd. in Qiantang District, Hangzhou, where the man who was hit, Xia, is an employee of the company.
An eyewitness mentioned that when the involved Xiaomi car owner was reversing, the left front wheel of the car hit the person involved. “At that time, Old Xia happened to be squatting in that corner. The car was clearly moving quite slowly and suddenly accelerated in an instant, for no apparent reason.”
On the evening of the 15th, employees of Mingma Automobile Town confirmed that a traffic accident did occur in the park that day.
Internal sources at Xiaomi mentioned that during the accident, the Xiaomi vehicle was under manual control, not in autonomous driving mode. While reversing in a narrow aisle, mistakenly pressing the accelerator pedal instead of the brake pedal caused the collision with the pedestrian from behind. An ambulance arrived at the scene, and the injured person was transferred. The investigation into the incident is still ongoing. Further information on whether the person involved died on the spot is not available.
According to reports from First Financial, the Hangzhou Traffic Police Brigade confirmed that a traffic accident did occur at the Xiaomi Xiasa Delivery Center. Due to the ongoing legal procedures related to the accident, they could not disclose further information on whether the person involved died at the scene.
Netizens have once again criticized Xiaomi’s vehicles: “Buying this car is like gambling with your life.” “Companies that prioritize making fast money don’t respect life, it would be strange if accidents didn’t happen.”
After the accident, netizens questioned Xiaomi’s recent promotion of safety technologies such as AEB (Automatic Emergency Braking) and AES (Emergency Steering Assist) on social media, which the CEO Lei Jun had also shared multiple times.
At the Guangzhou Auto Show in November of this year, Xiaomi announced comprehensive optimization of AEB, adding low-speed front and rear collision prevention features and introducing AES, forming a dual safety protection system of “braking + steering.”
This year, public opinion has repeatedly fermented around the perception that Xiaomi vehicles do not prioritize safety.
The incidents involving the Xiaomi SU7 exploding in Tongling, Anhui on March 29, and a Xiaomi vehicle speeding and catching fire in Chengdu on October 13, have put Xiaomi and its CEO Lei Jun under scrutiny. These two incidents, both related to intelligent driving assistance systems, involved issues with doors not opening. In the Chengdu incident, firefighters had to use equipment to cut open the car body.
With public outcry escalating, any incident, big or small, related to Xiaomi vehicles or any statements made by Lei Jun spark conversations.
In early December, a commentary published by Xinhua News Agency caused a stir on the internet. The article criticized the marketing tactics of using large text to attract attention while including disclaimers in small text, with netizens interpreting it as a criticism of Xiaomi’s marketing strategy – specifically, how the Xiaomi 17 series was labeled “The King of Backlit” prominently, but included in small text at the bottom, “as a product design goal,” leading to questions about playing with words to the extreme.