SU7 design team unveiled Xiaomi car ready to go.

Recently, the website of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the 379th batch of "Announcement of Road Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Products", including Xiaomi SU7. As the first model built by Xiaomi, Xiaomi SU7 was unveiled on December 28, 2023, and its design team has also attracted much attention from the industry.

At the product launch on December 28th, Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi, introduced the design team of Xiaomi Automobile, among which Li Tianyuan was the chief designer. It is reported that Li Tianyuan participated in the design of BMW IX.

According to public information, Li Tianyuan has been the general manager and chief designer of Xiaomi Automobile Industry Design since 2021, and the vice chairman of Xiaomi Group Design Committee. He graduated from Southwest University of Science and Technology with a major in industrial design.

During 2009-2011, he served as the exterior designer of Beijing Great Wall Huaguan; During 2011-2012, he served as exterior designer of PSA China R&D Center and exterior designer of Peugeot Urban Crossover Concept. During 2012-2016, Li Tianyuan worked as a senior exterior designer of BMW Designworks Shanghai Design Center.

He was also the first China automobile designer to join BMW, and participated in many automobile design and research projects of BMW Group, including BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce. During the period, the main projects were the main exterior designer of Zinoro Next concept car, and the main exterior designer of the new 7 series project in the early stage of scale.

From 2016 to 2021, he worked as a senior exterior design expert of BMW i/M brand in BMW Muny R&D Center, mainly responsible for the exterior design of BMW I brand flagship electric SUV BMW iX, the mid-term change of BMW 5 Series in 2019, and the BMW i Vision Circular concept car in 2021.

In fact, Li Tianyuan’s experience in BMW may be more concerned by the outside world. In the past ten years at BMW, Li Tianyuan has worked on many well-known projects. Among them, BMW IX, at that time, Li Tianyuan was considered to have completed an almost impossible task-designing a heavyweight model of a first-line luxury brand in Europe.

According to Wikipedia, BMW iX is an electric medium-sized luxury crossover SUV, which was first presented at the Paris Motor Show in 2018 in a conceptual form and named Vision iNext. It is also the first electric vehicle specially manufactured by BMW since i3.

In addition, Li Tianyuan is also the main exterior designer of BMW’s 2021 i Vision Circular concept car, which is the starting point of BMW’s new strategy Neue Klasse and redesigns and defines BMW’s digital kidney shape.

In addition to Li Tianyuan, members of Xiaomi SU7 design team include Qiu Zhen, who is in charge of exterior design, and Shin Muto, who is in charge of interior design.

Qiu Zhen graduated from Jiangnan University. He has worked in Porsche, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo, and participated in the exterior design of Mercedes-Benz concept car and Mercedes-Benz EQ series.

Shin Muto is Li Tianyuan’s colleague in BMW. He used to be a senior designer of BMW and participated in the interior design of BMW Z4.

According to reports, Xiaomi SU7 is a C-class car. Lei Jun said that from a technical point of view, it is more difficult to make a car than an SUV, so Xiaomi chose the most difficult and farthest road among all technical decisions.

The publicity of the declaration map disclosed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology may further incite a new wave of car-making forces. With Xiaomi Automobile joining the car-making forces, China’s domestic new energy vehicles are also welcoming a new competitive pattern, and it remains to be seen where the future lies.