Can attracting several top executives from Tesla relieve Lei Jun's "anxiety" about sales?

It is rumored that Xiaomi Auto has "recruited" several former top executives from Tesla, and its organizational structure may be injected with "fresh blood" again.

Recently, the market has successively reported that Kong Yanshuang, the former general manager of Tesla China, and Song Gang, the former vice president of production and manufacturing at Tesla's Shanghai factory, will join Xiaomi Auto.

Public information shows that both of the aforementioned individuals were key talents in Tesla China. Among them, Kong Yanshuang has long led the layout of Tesla's sales system and brand promotion in the Chinese market, while Song Gang led the construction and production capacity ramp - up of Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory.

Some analysts believe that if the news of Kong Yanshuang and Song Gang joining Xiaomi Auto is true, Xiaomi Auto's sales and production systems may get a certain boost, and it is expected to achieve new breakthroughs in market expansion and production capacity improvement.

Looking back at 2025, it was undoubtedly a "harvest" year of great milestone significance in the development of Xiaomi Auto. In this year, Xiaomi Auto delivered 411,000 new vehicles throughout the year, achieving an astonishing year - on - year surge of 200.4%, which successfully boosted the revenue of the intelligent electric vehicle business by 221.8% to 103.3 billion yuan.

Looking forward to 2026, Lei Jun has set a grand goal of delivering 550,000 vehicles for Xiaomi Auto throughout the year. However, considering the cumulative delivery volume of over 79,000 vehicles in the first quarter, for Xiaomi Auto to achieve this goal, the subsequent monthly average delivery volume needs to reach 52,000 vehicles. But last year, Xiaomi Auto only achieved a delivery result of over 50,000 vehicles in December.

"Poaching" former Tesla backbones? Focusing on both sales and production

According to a recent report by Jiemian News, Kong Yanshuang, the former general manager of Tesla China, joined Xiaomi in early March. She will replace Li Xiaorui, the former director of Xiaomi Auto, to be in charge of the automobile sales work. Currently, Kong Yanshuang is in the work - handover period, and Xiaomi has not officially issued a document to announce her specific position.

According to Sina Technology, Kong Yanshuang comes from EF English. She once served as the store manager of Tesla's Shanghai Jinqiao store and was later transferred to be the regional sales director of Tesla in Shenzhen.

Promoted by Wang Hao, the then general manager of Tesla China, Kong Yanshuang advanced rapidly in her career. She successively served as the general manager of Tesla's South China region and the general manager of the Chinese region.

During her tenure at Tesla, Kong Yanshuang long led the layout of Tesla's sales system and brand promotion in the Chinese market. In November 2022, Tesla's monthly sales exceeded 100,000 vehicles, and the Model Y became the best - selling model in the Chinese market.

In May 2024, with the adjustment of Tesla's management, Kong Yanshuang was transferred to the Shanghai region to replace the original sales leader and continued to participate in the management and penetration work of the Chinese sales system, contributing to Tesla's continuous expansion in the Chinese market.

According to Jiemian News, another employee with a Tesla background, "Eason", joined Xiaomi at the same time as Kong Yanshuang. He serves as the "political commissar" of Xiaomi's Auto Department and is also a member of Xiaomi's Staff Department.

It is understood that Xiaomi Group's Staff Department is a core department that assists the CEO in formulating and supervising the group's development strategy and occupies a pivotal position within Xiaomi Group.

A person close to Xiaomi said that it is quite rare for a new employee to directly enter the Staff Department after joining Xiaomi, which also demonstrates the outstanding ability of this person from the side.

According to a recent report by Lanjing News, Song Gang, the former vice president of production and manufacturing at Tesla's Shanghai factory and the key figure who led the construction and production capacity ramp - up of Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory, will also join Xiaomi Auto.

Public information shows that Song Gang once worked at General Motors and Ford Motor. He joined Tesla in 2018 and served as the vice president of production and manufacturing at Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory. He is known as the "ace factory director" in the outside world.

On his LinkedIn page, Song Gang once claimed to be the first employee of Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory. He participated in the construction of the world's top - ranked vehicle factory, battery factory, and drive unit factory.

On December 18, 2024, Song Gang left Tesla and quickly joined Envision Energy a few days later, serving as the senior vice president of the integrated supply chain.

A person familiar with the matter revealed that Song Gang may serve as the factory director and form a partnership with Ji Guowei, the current factory director. "The factory director is actually a very crucial experience - based position. Xiaomi Auto's factory has a large number of employees, and the management responsibility is very heavy."

Some analysts believe that the valuable experience Song Gang accumulated over the years at Tesla's Shanghai factory enables him to master an efficient manufacturing methodology covering supply chain management, production line optimization, and quality control. This methodology may become a strong support for Xiaomi Auto to achieve high - efficiency and high - quality mass production and delivery.

Delivered over 79,000 vehicles in the first quarter, facing considerable annual sales pressure

Behind the recent intensive news of "recruiting talents", Xiaomi Auto, which has created many "sales myths", is currently facing certain sales pressure.

Judging from the sales data in the first three months of this year, Xiaomi Auto sold over 39,000 vehicles in January, over 20,000 vehicles in February, and over 20,000 vehicles in March. The cumulative sales in the first quarter exceeded 79,000 vehicles.

Compared with the delivery result of about 76,000 vehicles in the same period last year, the growth rate of Xiaomi Auto in the first quarter of this year is not very obvious.

Based on a rough estimate of the monthly delivery volume floor disclosed by Xiaomi Auto, in the remaining three quarters of 2026, Xiaomi Auto needs to achieve a monthly average delivery volume of over 52,000 vehicles to ensure the smooth realization of the annual goal of 550,000 vehicles.

However, as of now, Xiaomi Auto's monthly delivery volume only successfully exceeded the 50,000 - vehicle mark in December last year, and the subsequent tasks of production capacity improvement and market expansion are still quite arduous.

However, considering that the first quarter was a special period for the replacement of the old and new generations of Xiaomi SU7, the subsequent sales of Xiaomi Auto may pick up.

It is reported that the new - generation Xiaomi SU7 began to be delivered on March 23 this year. On April 1, Xiaomi Auto announced the latest monthly delivery result: the delivery volume in March exceeded 20,000 vehicles, among which the cumulative delivery of the new - generation SU7 reached 7,000 vehicles.

During the live - broadcast of disassembling the new - generation SU7 on April 2, Lei Jun revealed that the locked - order volume of the new - generation SU7 had exceeded 40,000 vehicles.

However, compared with the situation when the first - generation SU7 was launched at the end of March 2024, this data has not achieved an amazing growth. On April 3 of that year, Lei Jun revealed at the first - batch delivery ceremony at the Beijing Xiaomi Auto factory store that the large - order volume of Xiaomi SU7 had exceeded 100,000, and the locked - order volume had exceeded 40,000.

An employee of Xiaomi Auto told Jiemian News that Xiaomi Auto's retail system was planned with reference to the Tesla model at the beginning. Currently, a considerable proportion of the provincial company general managers and regional managers have a Tesla background.

It is reported that Xiaomi's previous channel model was "1 + N". Among them, "1" represents the self - built and self - operated delivery center of Xiaomi Auto, whose main function is delivery and covers the "sales and after - sales service" business; "N" represents agent sales and user service touchpoints.

A leading Xiaomi dealer also said that in the past two years, Xiaomi Auto paid more attention to the construction of products and brand power and ignored the personal value of front - line salespeople. Since November last year, after the people from Tesla came, they started to "compete in the process, data, and the management of people, goods, and the market", and now the ability of front - line salespeople has been significantly improved.

In the view of this dealer, Xiaomi Auto's orders are no longer in a "burst - style" rhythm, so it is necessary to strengthen the ability of the automobile sales team to cope with the subsequent stable - sales period. Tesla's way of cultivating talents is systematic, which is very suitable for Xiaomi's current rhythm.

In addition to making efforts in the sales end, to support the annual sales target of 550,000 vehicles, Xiaomi Auto is also accelerating the layout of production capacity.

According to Lanjing News, a person familiar with the matter revealed that "Xiaomi Auto already has two factories in Beijing, one is in use, one is waiting for a license, and there will be a third one later."

It is reported that the total production capacity of Xiaomi Auto's Beijing factory has reached 450,000 vehicles. Among them, the first - phase and second - phase factories are operating at full capacity, with an annual production capacity of about 300,000 to 330,000 vehicles. The third - phase factory in Beijing was put into production after the Spring Festival in 2026, with a designed annual production capacity of 150,000 vehicles.

In addition, Xiaomi Auto's Wuhan factory is also planned to be put into production in May 2026, with an annual production capacity of 150,000 vehicles.

Foundation laid by "insiders", continuous supplementation by "external aids"

Leida Finance noticed that in the early stage of Xiaomi Auto's preparation and establishment, its core team was mainly composed of Xiaomi's internal backbones and senior executives from traditional automobile companies.

Going back to March 2021, at Xiaomi's Spring New Product Launch Conference, Lei Jun officially announced the entry into the intelligent electric vehicle field and said that this was his last major entrepreneurial project in his life and he was willing to stake his entire reputation on it.

According to Tianyancha, in September 2021, Xiaomi Auto Co., Ltd. was registered and established. At that time, Lei Jun personally took the lead, serving as the executive director and general manager, which shows Xiaomi's high degree of attention to the automobile business.

From April to September of the same year, Xiaomi established an automobile team of hundreds of people, conducted a large amount of user research and industrial chain inspections. At the same time, the preparation team for Xiaomi Auto was also formed at that time.

Among them, Li Xiaoshuang, the former general manager of Xiaomi's large - home - appliance business, was mainly responsible for the preparation work related to the whole vehicle, supply chain, and factory; Yu Kai, the former deputy chief of the Staff Department, was responsible for the preparation of the cockpit business; the autonomous driving business was under the Xiaomi Technology Committee, and Ye Hangjun, the chairman of the Technology Committee, was responsible for its preparation.

One year later, the product department under Li Xiaoshuang was handed over to Yu Liguo. It is reported that Yu Liguo had worked at BAIC for many years and once served as the president of BAIC's ARCFOX. In the second half of 2021, he officially joined Xiaomi Auto and was assigned to the General Management Department of the Auto Department.

After that, with his outstanding ability, Yu Liguo served as the vice president of Xiaomi Auto and the political commissar of Xiaomi Auto's Beijing headquarters, responsible for coordinating the comprehensive management work of Xiaomi Auto, promoting special - purpose business, and the organization and talent construction of Xiaomi Auto's Beijing headquarters.

During that period, Xiaomi Auto actively recruited outstanding executives from traditional automobile companies to continuously strengthen its team strength. For example, Hu Zhengnan, the former dean of Geely Research Institute, participated in Xiaomi's automobile - building business as a senior consultant and was in charge of Xiaomi's whole - vehicle work.

In August 2022, Zhou Xing, the former deputy general manager of SAIC - GM - Wuling's sales company, joined Xiaomi Auto and served as the marketing director.

In May 2023, Wen Fei, the former CEO of Great Wall's Salon brand, joined Xiaomi Auto and replaced Zhou Xing as the marketing director.

In June of the same year, Huang Zhenyu, the vice president of Xiaomi's Auto Department, also served as the general manager of the Supply Chain Department of the Auto Department. He was previously the vice president of Magna's China region, a global supplier.

At the beginning of 2025, Xiaomi Auto had another personnel adjustment. Yu Liguo, the vice president of the Auto Department, was in charge of the Intelligent Manufacturing Department, the factory, and the System Operation Department; Huang Zhenyu, the vice president of the Auto Department, continued to serve as the general manager of the Supply Chain Department and the Quality Department; Yu Kai, who was previously responsible for the preparation of the cockpit business, served as the general manager of the Product Department.

If Xiaomi Auto successfully introduces several backbone talents from Tesla, can it successfully achieve the annual sales target of 550,000 vehicles? Leida Finance will continue to pay attention.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Leida Finance". Author: Ding Yu, Editor: Meng Shuai. Republished by 36Kr with authorization.