What exactly are people talking about when they discuss Xiaomi cars?

Xiaomi Auto is facing another major test of trust.

At around 3:16 a.m. on October 13, 2025, a traffic accident involving a Xiaomi SU7 Ultra resulted in the tragic death of the driver, once again pushing Xiaomi Auto into the spotlight of public opinion.

After the accident, the Chengdu police mentioned in the notification that "upon testing, the driver of the SU7 Ultra was suspected of driving a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol."

Beyond the police notification, the detail that "the doors of the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra could not be opened" fermented on social media, which inevitably reminded the outside world of the accident earlier this year. The semi - hidden door handles of the Xiaomi SU7 series triggered public discussions about the safety of Xiaomi Auto.

Image source: Xiaomi Auto Weibo

Interestingly, Xiaomi's official side remained silent again.

At the 2025 World Intelligent Connected Vehicles Conference, Lei Jun, the CEO of Xiaomi Group, delivered a speech, calling on the entire industry to jointly resist online trolls. Subsequently, some media pointed out that we should not stigmatize public concerns with black public relations.

Two serious car accidents half a year apart, the lingering doubts about the "locked doors", combined with Xiaomi's official response attitude and two recall events this year, have continuously put pressure on the product safety reputation of Xiaomi Auto. According to Huitun Data, Lei Jun lost 350,000 followers in the past 30 days, with an average daily loss of more than 10,000 followers.

Behind this, it reflects the gap between brand promises and user experiences. The core lies in how enterprises should handle themselves when the ambition of technological innovation encounters the bottom line of life safety, when the skills of marketing rhetoric meet the public's demand for the right to know, and when the trust accumulated by the brand is impacted by real - world problems?

A "big discussion" about black public relations and public safety concerns

In this accident, the public did not wait for Xiaomi's response to the outside world's questions, but instead waited for Lei Jun and Xiaomi's criticism of "black public relations".

On the fourth day after the accident, Lei Jun delivered a speech at the 2025 World Intelligent Connected Vehicles Conference. In the speech, Lei Jun focused on "online trolls and black public relations".

Lei Jun believes that the development of intelligent connected vehicles is in a historical opportunity period. This is not a zero - sum game. The entire industry needs to unite to build and share a new ecosystem for intelligent connected vehicles and jointly promote the development of the industry.

He emphasized that the intelligent vehicle industry should, under the guidance of the government, take safety as the foundation, quality as the core, and innovation as the direction. The industry should work together around important underlying technologies and key R & D fields, concentrate resources and energy on technological innovation and R & D, jointly resist online chaos such as online trolls and black public relations, and create a positive, civilized and orderly industrial development environment.

In fact, Xiaomi and Lei Jun's initiative against black public relations is not without an industry foundation. On September 12, CCTV Finance broadcast a special report exposing the operation mode of the black public relations industry chain in the new energy vehicle industry: after the planners place an order, the content factories use AI to generate false information in batches, which is then distributed and spread through account matrices. The false video about "the doors of Xiaomi Auto could not be opened after a collision" was investigated by the police as early as November 2024, but it still spreads repeatedly on the Internet.

At that time, Lei Jun reposted the report, emphasizing that Xiaomi's legal department had collected evidence from hundreds of accounts this year, initiated dozens of lawsuits, and supported the joint special rectification action of six departments.

Image source: Lei Jun's Weibo

On September 26, after the 2025 Lei Jun Annual Speech event, Lei Jun said bluntly in an interview with the media that "Xiaomi Auto is one of the most slandered brands online."

However, this time, these remarks about black public relations triggered a big discussion.

The Qianjiang Evening News published a commentary titled "Don't stigmatize public safety concerns with black public relations".

The commentary in the Qianjiang Evening News pointed directly to the core contradiction: "Without getting a clear and forceful response from the relevant enterprise to important safety issues, the public first hears the appeal to combat black public relations. This situation is rather strange."

The article stated that while firmly opposing "online smear campaigns" and "black public relations", enterprises also need to be vigilant against another wrong tendency: simply attributing all public doubts to "online smear campaigns" and "black public relations", avoiding real problems with a "victim" mentality, and adopting an "ostrich strategy" towards the public's reasonable concerns.

"Some criticisms are reasonable and legitimate. If an enterprise blindly resists or even deliberately stigmatizes these voices, labeling them as online smear campaigns or black public relations, it is deliberately muddying the waters and shifting the focus. The public will probably be even more disgusted by such manipulation of words and avoidance of the essence."

The article did not directly mention Xiaomi, only stating that "recently, a fatal traffic accident involving a car occurred on Tianfu Avenue in Chengdu. The doors could not be opened during the rescue, which attracted public attention. Since the accident, the manufacturer has not made any public response. However, at the end of a public speech on October 16, the enterprise's leader did not respond to the public's concerns but instead called on the industry to jointly resist online chaos such as online trolls and black public relations."

The commentary on this incident in the article reveals a view between the lines: although online black public relations need to be severely cracked down on, enterprises cannot conflate the public's normal doubts about life safety with black public relations. This practice of changing the concept is actually shifting the focus and ignoring the basic premise that 'the right to life is above all else'.

An article published by Yicai mentioned that after one and a half years of market tests since the official launch of its first mass - produced vehicle, Lei Jun, known as the "marketing genius", has suffered a complete backlash in his public image. As the focus shifts from 3C products that emphasize "user experience" to the automotive field where "life is at stake", the public's patience with a certain automotive brand's excessive marketing is rapidly wearing thin, and the resulting trust crisis is like the "Sword of Damocles" hanging over the brand.

The core difference in this big discussion essentially lies in the misalignment between the enterprise's public opinion strategy and the public's core demands. There are indeed chaotic situations where black public relations maliciously smear in the intelligent vehicle industry. Excessive hype of individual accidents can mislead consumers and hinder technological innovation in the industry. Conversely, safety is the bottom line of the automotive industry. Enterprises cannot evade their responsibilities under the pretext of resisting black public relations, and the public's reasonable doubts should be respected and responded to.

How many doubts remain in the two highly - publicized "car accidents"?

The fuse of this big discussion stems from the accident of the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra. As of now, in the face of comments from multiple media and public inquiries, Xiaomi Group and Lei Jun himself have not responded to the accident, and the public opinion is still fermenting.

The problem of "the doors not being able to open after a collision" has occurred twice in serious accidents involving the Xiaomi SU7 within less than seven months, becoming two major doubts in the public's mind.

In the accident on October 13, a witness who participated in the on - site rescue told a reporter from The Paper that "the outer door of the accident vehicle was an electronic lock and could not be opened at that time." Many on - site onlookers "tried to open the door with fists and kicks" but failed. "Later, when the fire truck arrived and used a cutter to cut open the window, the person was rescued."

Although the traffic police notification pointed out that the driver was suspected of drunk driving, the common problem of "the doors not being able to be opened from the outside after a collision" once again triggered a tsunami of public opinion.

Image source: Xiaomi Auto Weibo

The public's doubts mainly focus on three core aspects:

First, does the door unlocking mechanism of the Xiaomi SU7 series have design flaws? Why did the doors lock in both serious accidents?

Second, why did the vehicle catch fire so quickly after the collision? It only took a few seconds from the roll - over to the fire. Are the protective measures for the battery pack up to standard?

Third, did Xiaomi know about the door safety hazards before? Why were no targeted rectification measures taken after the accident in Anhui?

On March 29 this year, on a highway in Tongling, Anhui, another Xiaomi SU7 hit the guardrail and the battery exploded and caught fire three seconds later. The locked doors led to the tragic death of three students in the car, and the doors also could not be opened.

These two tragedies have pushed the door safety issue of new energy vehicles into the spotlight of public opinion.

According to a report by The Paper, Zhang Xiang, a guest professor and the secretary - general of the International Association for Intelligent Transport Technology, said that the exterior of the Xiaomi SU7 door handle looks like a mechanical one, but it is actually a fully electronic handle controlled by electricity. Once the power is cut off, it will not work. At this time, the only way to open the door is the small mechanical emergency handle inside the door, but only if the car owner is still able to move and open the door.

In both accidents, problems occurred with the semi - hidden door handles known for their aesthetic design, which truly proves that such a design is flashy but lacks substance and has safety hazards.

More importantly, it is Xiaomi's attitude. In March, in response to these questions, Xiaomi's official side issued two responses, mainly stating that "we have not had access to the accident vehicle and cannot conduct an analysis," but did not provide key information such as the door unlocking data at the moment of the collision and the battery thermal management records.

Especially in the Chengdu incident, Lei Jun has not responded yet, which has triggered discussions among netizens. A Xiaomi user told Lianxian Insight bluntly, "As the biggest spokesperson for Xiaomi, Lei Jun should have comforted consumers. Even a single word from him would have made us feel better."

From March to October this year, only at the launch event of the Xiaomi Auto YU7 at the end of June did Lei Jun actively talk about car safety, saying that "safety is the prerequisite, the foundation, and everything," and standardizing the full set of high - level assisted driving hardware across the board.

Image source: Xiaomi Auto Weibo

However, this has not reduced the public's doubts about Xiaomi's quality.

Recently, Xiaomi Auto Technology Co., Ltd. filed a recall plan with the State Administration for Market Regulation in accordance with the requirements of the "Regulations on the Recall of Defective Automobile Products" and the "Implementation Measures for the Regulations on the Recall of Defective Automobile Products". It has decided to recall some standard - version SU7 electric vehicles produced from February 6, 2024, to August 30, 2025, a total of 116,887 vehicles, starting from now.

In some cases when the L2 high - speed pilot assisted driving function of some vehicles within the scope of this recall is activated, the recognition, warning, or handling of extremely special scenarios may be insufficient. If the driver does not intervene in time, it may increase the risk of collision, posing a safety hazard.

This is already the second recall of the standard - version SU7 by Xiaomi this year. In January, Xiaomi recalled about 30,900 vehicles due to "abnormal detection of static obstacles by the intelligent parking assistance function".

The two recalls combined with the two accidents have intensified the outside world's concerns about Xiaomi's product quality and safety. Many core doubts have not been answered for a long time, and Xiaomi's "silence strategy" seems to be continuously eroding market trust.

Has Lei Jun's public image changed?

In September this year, Lei Jun started his 2025 annual speech as usual.

Compared with the large - scale pre - event promotion in the past, Lei Jun was very low - key this year. The whole speech still continued Lei Jun's warm - hearted style, but on the day after the annual speech, the market reaction was very cold - its stock price once fell by more than 8%, and the market value evaporated by more than HK$100 billion.

Some people said that "Lei Jun's speech has lost its magic", and some said that "Lei Jun's speech is too formulaic"... The public's attitude is quietly changing. The "Thunder God" active on the Internet, the entrepreneurial leader in consumers' hearts, is stepping down from the altar, and even his public image is declining.

On the day of the SU7 accident in Chengdu, Lei Jun reposted a Weibo post promoting a new car, saying "It looks better in the sun", avoiding any mention of the relevant incident. This serious misalignment with the public's expectations disappointed many former supporters.

"I used to think Lei Jun was down - to - earth, but now he seems to be obsessed with public opinion warfare." "Fix the doors first, and then talk about purifying the industry environment." The comments from netizens are quite representative.

A Xiaomi user told Lianxian Insight, "If Xiaomi used to be full of passion, now it has become a brand overly reliant on marketing strategies."

This statement seems to make sense. In September, the Xiaomi 17 Pro, codenamed "King of Backlight", was heavily promoted at the launch event, raising users' expectations. However, in the small print at the bottom - right corner of the poster, it was stated that "King of Backlight is the product design goal."

This word game of big - word promotion and small - print clarification triggered a heated discussion among netizens.

In fact, there were early signs of the decline in Lei Jun's public image. In May this year, Xiaomi SU7 Ultra was involved in a "false promotion" scandal due to the discrepancy between the promotion of the carbon fiber double - duct front hatch and the actual function. At that time, although Lei Jun posted a message saying that "the past more than a month was the most difficult period since the establishment of Xiaomi", he did not propose any substantial solutions, which disappointed many Xiaomi fans.

Compared with the decline in Lei Jun's public image, the voices from Xiaomi car owners are more complex and diverse.

Gu Yi, a Xiaomi car owner, told Lianxian Insight, "The Chengdu incident was probably caused by drunk driving and speeding. It's normal that the doors couldn't be opened. I don't think it has much to do with the car's quality. After all, at such a high speed, even if we want to investigate the car's quality problems, this scenario is not appropriate."

He has owned a Xiaomi SU7 for a few months. Apart from its good - looking and fashionable appearance, the performance and driving experience are also good. "At least the quality of the car matches its price."

Gu Yi said that unless there is