Key Takeaways
Xiaomi’s Beijing EV plant attracts 27,000 month-to-month functions for simply 1,100 tour spots.Round 700 Xiaomi robots assist produce an SU7 each 76 seconds with simply 100 human overseers.Xiaomi plans 111 month-to-month excursions by Nov. 2026 as China’s auto prices run about 30% under Germany’s.
On the sting of Beijing, Xiaomi’s EV plant in Yizhuang is drawing the form of crowds often reserved for theme parks: about 27,000 lottery functions a month for roughly 1,100 tour spots. Guests pay round $60 to look at some 700 robots and robotic arms work alongside about 100 human staff, turning out a Xiaomi SU7 each 76 seconds. The campus, roughly the scale of the Forbidden Metropolis, even showcases a 9,100-ton die-casting machine that stamps out whole rear underbodies in 120 seconds. It’s a spectacle constructed across the identical math that has Western boardrooms on edge: Worldwide Power Company evaluation places China’s automotive manufacturing prices about 30% decrease than Germany’s, with battery cell costs over 30% cheaper than in Europe and over 20% cheaper than in the US.
A high-tech spectacle on Beijing’s edge
Manufacturing facility excursions are often a aspect dish, the type automakers tuck behind a present store. However Xiaomi has turned its electric-vehicle plant into one thing nearer to a pilgrimage web site for hardware-minded vacationers. Out on the sting of Beijing within the Yizhuang growth zone, the campus has develop into a lottery-only attraction, with 27,000 functions a month chasing roughly 1,100 tour spots.
The location itself is big: about 718,000 sq. meters, or roughly 7.7 million sq. ft, usually likened to the footprint of the Forbidden Metropolis. For American readers used to Silicon Valley’s workplace parks, it’s a reminder that fashionable manufacturing, particularly for EVs, is now being staged at campus scale, with guests watching the identical choreography that feeds real-world supply schedules.
Robots first, people watching the road
Inside, the labor combine is the headline. Xiaomi’s ground runs with roughly 700 robots and robotic arms working alongside about 100 human staff supervising the method. The output goal is equally blunt: a completed Xiaomi SU7 each 76 seconds, a cadence that makes the tour really feel much less like a museum and extra like standing close to a dwell server rack.
The {hardware} flex goes past robotic arms. The plant features a 9,100-ton die-casting machine that may stamp a complete rear underbody in 120 seconds, a element that caught with NPR’s go to to the power. One information, pointing to an particularly busy automaton, put it merely in “Happiest Employee” phrases: “Yeah, this robots, we name it Happiest Employee.”
When an EV plant sells tickets
Xiaomi started public excursions in March 2024 (some accounts place the beginning in April), and it has already hosted greater than 250,000 guests. Tickets run about $60, and excessive demand has pushed scalped lottery slots on-line as excessive as $300, an odd secondary market that treats entry like a sneaker drop.
By June 2026, the manufacturing unit hosted 82 guided excursions for the month, structured as 2 per weekday and 14 on weekends. Xiaomi has mentioned it plans to carry that to 111 tour periods a month by November 2026, turning a manufacturing line right into a standing month-to-month occasion schedule.
The fee math that worries Detroit and Berlin
It’s not simply spectacle that attracts consideration. Xiaomi launched the SU7 in China on March 28, 2024, priced from $30,400, and CEO Lei Jun acknowledged that entry worth meant promoting at a loss. The attraction is what the tour symbolizes: relentless price compression paired with heavy automation.
The Worldwide Power Company has argued that producing a automotive in China is roughly 30% less expensive than in Germany, pushed by labor prices that may be 3 to five occasions decrease than in superior economies and by battery benefits. The IEA additionally discovered EV battery cell costs common over 20% decrease in China than within the US, a spot that sits behind as we speak’s boardroom anxiousness, even earlier than you account for experiments like Xiaomi’s March 2, 2026 humanoid robotic trial that hit a 90.2% success price whereas maintaining tempo with the road.
