Xiaomi books German dealers and aims its cars at Europe in 2027

Xiaomi used IFA 2026 in Berlin to put a date on a European car launch: 2027, with Germany as the first market. On 3 September it signed letters of intent with eight German dealer groups: Emil Frey Germany, Ernst Dello Group, Autohaus Dinnebier, Hahn Automobile, LUEG Mobility Group, Fett and Wirtz, SPT Avior and Penske-Jacobs. Chief marketing officer Xu Fei called Europe a key market for the company's global plan.

The stand covered more than 3,300 square metres, Xiaomi's largest solo show abroad, and held more than 380 products under a slogan the company writes as Human x Car x Home. On the floor sat the SU7, the SU7 Ultra and a Vision Gran Turismo concept. From inside a car, staff showed curtains opening and air-conditioning starting in a mock apartment. The pitch is that a phone, a house and a car share time, weather and location so the lights are already set when the driver gets home.

Delivery numbers from China are the proof Xiaomi wants dealers to trust. The company said it has handed over more than 655,000 vehicles in the mainland since the first customer car in March 2024. A separate IFA brief put the figure above 700,000. The SU7 Ultra set a production-car record in the Electric Executive class at the Nurburgring Nordschleife in April 2025. Those are China-market facts. Europe still requires type approval, charging networks, spare parts and a service desk that can treat a crashed SU7 like a crashed Volkswagen.

The eight letters of intent are not dealer contracts. They are a queue. Emil Frey and Penske-Jacobs are names German buyers already know. Putting them on a stage in Berlin is how a phone-maker tells a sceptical auto trade that it will not sell cars only through a website. Xu's line about other European markets means the German list is a template. France, Italy and the Nordics would need their own groups. None of those names were read out on 3 September.

Mijia, the smart-home brand, is being pushed across Europe on the same timetable. That is the less glamorous half of the plan and the half that has to work if the car is going to talk to a boiler. IFA has always been a white-goods and gadget fair. Xiaomi treating it as an auto launch pad is a bet that the same visitor who buys a robot vacuum will accept a Chinese electric car with a phone logo on the nose.

European car policy is not standing still for that bet. The EU is in a running argument over Chinese EV tariffs, battery rules and data held in vehicles. Xiaomi did not use the IFA presser to answer those files in public. The dealer list is the company's answer for now: get a retail channel first, fight the regulation as it comes. Whether a 2027 on-sale date survives that fight is a 2026-27 Brussels question, not a Berlin exhibition question.

For German groups that signed, the calculation is simpler. They need electric volume as the old brands hesitate. Xiaomi needs someone to take a trade-in and book a service. The letters of intent make that exchange visible. The cars are still in China. The date on the wall in Berlin is 2027.