Xiaomi Sets September 7 Launch for New EVs and a Foldable, Head-to-Head With Huawei and Apple
Xiaomi has confirmed a September 7 launch event for its Pengcheng N70 and N90 electric SUVs, the Mi 18 Fold foldable and a tablet built on its in-house Xuanjie O3 chip — three days before Huawei and Apple hold their own events in the same week.
Xiaomi will put three new electric SUVs, its next foldable phone and a flagship tablet on stage next Monday, and its rivals have booked the same week. The company's official account confirmed the September 7, 7 p.m. lineup on Tuesday: the Pengcheng N70 Pro and N70 Max, a larger N90 Max, the Mi 18 Fold foldable flagship, and the Pad 9 Pro Max tablet, which debuts the in-house Xuanjie O3 processor Xiaomi unveiled late last month.
The date puts Xiaomi squarely inside the most crowded launch window of the Chinese tech calendar. Huawei opens with an afternoon event on September 7 built around HarmonyOS 7 and the Mate XT2; Apple follows on September 10 with its first fall event under new chief executive. On Weibo and Zhihu alike, the collision has become its own topic — one Zhihu question asking why everyone picks September has drawn answers weighing whether launching within days of each other actually costs anyone sales, or whether the shared spotlight is the price of the autumn shopping season that runs from the new school year to the November shopping festivals.
The cars are the more consequential half of the announcement for an outside reader still sorting out Xiaomi's businesses. The N70 line is the company's third and fourth model, and early drives suggest a deliberate change of character. The motoring journalist Wu Pei, who has been testing an N70 for days, wrote that unlike Xiaomi's first two cars, which leaned into sportiness, this one "emphasizes space and a homey feel" — a family car rather than a driver's car. Reviewer account Dami Reviews has been running a pricing poll; the N70's starting price, expected to be revealed on Monday, is the open question in the comments.
For Xiaomi the week is also a test of momentum built on its own silicon. The Pad 9 Pro Max is the second device line to carry the Xuanjie O3, the chip whose hidden microscopic "OK" inscription became a story of its own, and it lands just as Chinese phone prices climb across Huawei, Honor and Xiaomi's lineups on the back of rising memory costs. August delivery figures released this week put Xiaomi's car output above 30,000 units a month, comfortably behind Huawei's HarmonyOS group but growing. Whether the N70's homey turn widens that gap becomes clear on Monday evening, when Xiaomi names its prices last, after Huawei has already taken the afternoon.