Tag Archives: EVs

News

This Xiaomi SU7 Just Drove 265,000 Kilometers—and Its Battery Is Still On 94.5 Percent Capacity

If you want to understand the future of electric cars, sometimes it helps to look not at shiny auto-show concepts but at a very tired driver and a very not-tired battery.

Somewhere in China, a Xiaomi SU7 owner known online as Feng has quietly done what most EV skeptics insist can’t be done: he drove his electric sedan 265,000 kilometers in just 18 months—nearly the distance from Earth to the Moon—and the battery still looks like it just finished its break-in period.

According to a diagnostic report issued by Xiaomi’s own service center, the SU7’s 94.3-kWh pack is still holding 94.5 percent of its original capacity. In battery-speak, that’s astonishing. Feng averaged almost 500 kilometers per day, every day, for a year and a half. That’s the kind of usage that normally turns lithium-ion packs into cautionary tales. Instead, this one came back with barely a wrinkle.

To put that number in perspective, most automakers promise that after eight years or roughly 150,000 to 160,000 kilometers, your EV battery won’t degrade more than 20 to 30 percent. Tesla, for example, guarantees its Model 3 and Model Y will retain at least 70 percent capacity over that span. Feng’s SU7 has already blown past those mileage figures—and it’s still sitting north of 94 percent.

A High-Mileage Stress Test

The service report suggests the battery has gone through roughly 506 full charge cycles. That’s not light use. That’s the sort of cycling you’d expect to expose weaknesses in cell chemistry, thermal management, or charging strategy. Instead, the SU7’s pack seems to be taking it in stride.

And it’s not just the battery that’s holding up. Xiaomi’s technicians also noted that Feng hasn’t needed a brake-pad replacement yet, a reminder of how effective regenerative braking can be when used this heavily. Even the cooling system passed with flying colors—the coolant showed no water contamination, a detail that quietly signals good long-term system integrity.

In other words, this SU7 isn’t just surviving. It’s aging gracefully.

Why This Matters

Xiaomi may be new to the car business, but this kind of real-world data is exactly what separates marketing promises from engineering reality. Anyone can quote lab numbers. Feng delivered something far more valuable: a brutal, everyday stress test.

High-mileage EVs are still rare enough that every one of them becomes a rolling experiment. And this experiment suggests that Xiaomi’s battery management and thermal systems are doing something very right. If a pack can keep more than 94 percent of its capacity after 265,000 kilometers of near-constant driving, that’s not a fluke—that’s a design philosophy paying off.

The Road to 600,000

Feng isn’t done. His next target is 600,000 kilometers, which he expects to reach within three years. When he gets there, he plans to publish another full wear-and-tear report, effectively turning his SU7 into one of the world’s most documented long-term EV tests.

If the battery keeps degrading at this rate, that future report might be even more impressive than the first.

And for an industry still fighting doubts about durability, that may be the most important data point of all.

Source: Xiaomi; Photo: EPA-EFE

News

China Just Slammed the Door on Fancy EV Handles

It finally happened. After years of flush-mounted, motorized, and frankly over-engineered door handles taking over the EV world, China has decided it’s had enough.

Beginning January 1, 2027, every electric vehicle sold in China will be required to have old-fashioned, mechanical door handles—inside and out. No motors. No pop-out theatrics. No “wait for the handle to present itself” UX experiments. Just something you can grab and pull when things go wrong.

And things have gone very wrong.

The move comes after a string of high-profile, fatal EV crashes in which doors were allegedly impossible to open because the vehicles had lost electrical power. Two particularly horrific Xiaomi EV accidents, in which occupants and would-be rescuers reportedly couldn’t open the doors before fire overtook the cars, turned public outrage into regulatory action.

China’s message is clear: if the power goes out, the doors still need to open. Period.

Not Just a Ban—A Design Rewrite

This isn’t some vague safety guideline. According to Bloomberg, China’s new rules read like a door-handle engineer’s fever dream.

Exterior handles must include a physical handhold measuring at least 60 mm by 20 mm—big enough for a rescuer’s gloved hand to find and yank after a crash. Inside, emergency door releases must be clearly labeled with signage at least 1 cm by 0.7 cm, positioned in standardized locations.

And here’s the killer: automakers are no longer allowed to rely on electronically powered handles at all—even if they include backup batteries or mechanical pull cables. If it needs electricity to work, it’s out.

That wipes out a massive chunk of the EV design playbook. Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y? Affected. BMW’s upcoming China-market iX3? Yep. Nio, Li Auto, Xpeng, Xiaomi—all built their brand identities partly around the sleek, hidden-handle aesthetic that China just declared unsafe.

As recently as April, about 60 percent of China’s top-selling new-energy vehicles used concealed or power-presented door handles. That entire trend now has a 2027 expiration date.

This Will Cost Automakers Real Money

Redesigning a door handle isn’t just swapping out a piece of trim. These systems are baked into crash structures, wiring looms, door skins, water seals, and interior panels.

A source familiar with Chinese EV development told Bloomberg that retrofitting a model to comply with the new rules could cost as much as 100 million yuan—about $14.4 million—per vehicle line. Multiply that across dozens of models, and suddenly door handles are a nine-figure problem.

Some brands saw this coming. Geely and BYD have already started creeping back toward traditional exposed handles, and Tesla’s design chief admitted months ago that the company was preparing for a regulatory pivot.

But here’s the twist: China’s EV-only rule is going to affect far more than just China.

Why This Won’t Stay in China

Automakers hate building region-specific hardware. It’s expensive, messy, and kills economies of scale. If China—the world’s largest EV market—requires mechanical door handles, most global automakers will simply standardize on compliant designs everywhere.

That means the end of pop-out handles may not be limited to Beijing or Shanghai. It could quietly kill the trend worldwide.

And that’s not just speculation. Tesla is already under formal investigation in the U.S. over its door systems, and European regulators have begun exploring their own restrictions. Once one major regulator draws a hard line, others tend to follow.

China may have just fired the opening shot in a global design rollback.

The Weird Part: Gas Cars Get a Free Pass

Here’s where things get awkward.

The ban applies only to electric vehicles—even though most EV door handles run on the same 12-volt electrical systems used in gas cars. In other words, the thing China says is dangerous on an EV is apparently fine on an SUV with a V-8.

Case in point: the Infiniti QX80 already uses electrically powered, pop-out door handles. If its battery were knocked out in a crash, it could fail in exactly the same way as the EVs now being regulated.

So yes, the law is inconsistent. But it still sets a powerful precedent: regulators are no longer willing to let “cool” design trump basic mechanical fail-safes.

The End of the Flush-Handle Era?

For a decade, electronic door handles were the visual shorthand of the modern EV—clean, aerodynamic, and vaguely futuristic. They also turned out to be a liability when everything else goes wrong.

China just decided that doors exist for emergencies, not Instagram.

And once the world’s largest EV market says something is unsafe, it rarely stays optional for long.

If you love pop-out handles, enjoy them while you can. The industry just got a very loud reminder that sometimes the best technology is the one that still works when the lights go out.

Source: Bloomberg

News

Toyota’s Mystery Three-Row EV Is Almost Here

Toyota’s slow-burn teaser campaign just took a sharp turn toward the real world. The company has finally dropped its first official photo and video of its upcoming SUV—and confirmed that the full reveal lands February 10. After months of speculation, patent sleuthing, and corporate breadcrumbs, we now have something resembling a shape. And that shape is unmistakably large.

Everything we’re seeing points to a three-row electric SUV, a long-promised piece of Toyota’s EV puzzle that now appears to be ready for primetime. The interior shots give the game away: a second row with captain’s chairs suggests either a six- or seven-seat layout, and the sheer amount of glass—thanks to a panoramic sunroof—makes this thing feel more family road-trip than futuristic pod.

Toyota’s designers haven’t been asleep at the wheel, either. A full digital gauge cluster sits ahead of the driver, while a big tablet-style infotainment screen dominates the center stack. USB ports tucked into the bases of the C-pillars hint at a vehicle that expects rear-seat passengers to be as plugged in as the powertrain. In other words, this is a modern, tech-forward hauler designed for people who actually use the third row.

But the real story is what this SUV is, not just what it looks like.

Back in 2021, Toyota showed off the bZ Large SUV concept—then called the bZ5X—a three-row EV that was supposed to be part of a massive 15-vehicle electric blitz. Since then, Toyota has quietly stepped back from the awkward “bZ” branding while reshuffling its EV strategy, but one thing has remained consistent: a big, U.S.-built, three-row electric SUV was always coming.

And this sure looks like it.

Patent images we uncovered earlier, especially of the concept’s rear end, line up eerily well with what Toyota just teased. The proportions, the body creases, and that wide rear light bar all match. Even the window shape—with its distinctive triangular base at the front—lines up with the filings. If this isn’t the production version of the bZ Large SUV, then Toyota has pulled off one of the most convincing misdirects in recent memory.

What Toyota hasn’t told us yet is the name—and that’s where things get spicy.

While industry insiders have been calling this thing the bZ5X for years, Toyota’s growing discomfort with the “bZ” label suggests something more familiar might be in the works. Enter Highlander.

Toyota already builds a wildly successful three-row crossover in the Grand Highlander, which absolutely crushed its shorter sibling last year. The standard Highlander’s sales fell more than 37 percent to just over 56,000 units, while the Grand Highlander surged nearly 91 percent to almost 137,000. That kind of split practically begs for a rethink—and electrifying the regular Highlander would be one way to do it.

An electric Highlander—or even something like a “bZ Highlander”—would make a lot of sense. Ford proved with the Mustang Mach-E that familiar nameplates can smooth the transition to electric, even when the vehicle underneath is something entirely new. Customers trust the Highlander name, and Toyota would be wise to lean on that goodwill as it tries to get conservative buyers comfortable with plugging in.

We already know this SUV will be built in Kentucky with batteries sourced from Toyota’s North Carolina facility, and production is expected to begin in the first half of 2026. The reveal next week in California should finally lock in the name, the specs, and just how serious Toyota is about re-entering the EV race it once helped invent—and then strangely abandoned.

So call it the bZ5X, the Grand Crown, or the Electric Highlander. What matters is that Toyota’s long-teased three-row EV is real, it’s coming, and it’s about to become one of the most important vehicles the company has launched in a decade.

And in a market where big electric family haulers are still thin on the ground, Toyota just showed up to the fight with something that actually looks ready to sell.

Source: Toyota