Xiaomi has no plans to bring its electric vehicle business to the United States, founder and chief executive Lei Jun said, following reports that one of the company’s electric SUVs had been spotted driving on a U.S. highway.
“We currently have no immediate plans to enter the US market. I suspect this YU7 was purchased by a US peer or supplier for benchmarking purposes,” Lei wrote in a post on the Chinese social media platform Weibo.
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Lei’s comments were in response to a report by Car Scoops, which published images of a Xiaomi YU7 Max electric SUV traveling on Interstate 5 in the United States with an Illinois license plate. The report suggested the vehicle could be undergoing testing in connection with the development of another electric vehicle.
Car Scoops speculated that the vehicle might be linked to Rivian, noting that Rivian manufactures vehicles in Illinois and that the same license plate number has previously appeared on Rivian test vehicles. Rivian is preparing to launch its R2 electric SUV, priced at about $45,000, and may be benchmarking competing models to assess performance ahead of the launch, the report said.
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Xiaomi officially launched the YU7, its first electric SUV, on June 26, 2025, positioning it as a competitor to Tesla’s Model Y. The model recorded deliveries of 39,089 units in December, bringing total deliveries for 2025 to 153,673 vehicles.
The YU7 Max variant is built on an 800-volt high-voltage architecture and offers a CLTC-rated driving range of up to 760 kilometres. It can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.23 seconds, according to Xiaomi.
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Earlier this month, Xiaomi also filed regulatory documents for a higher-performance YU7 GT variant. Data released by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology show the YU7 GT will feature a dual-motor powertrain delivering a combined 738 kilowatts, or about 990 horsepower, exceeding the 508 kW output of the most powerful YU7 version currently on record.
Despite its expanding EV lineup, Xiaomi faces significant barriers to entering the U.S. market, where current trade and regulatory policies effectively block Chinese-made vehicles from being sold. In February, the Financial Times reported that Ford Motor and Xiaomi were exploring a potential joint venture to produce electric vehicles in the United States, a report Xiaomi later denied.