February is always a short month in China, and Lunar New Year makes it shorter still. Factory shutdowns, travel, and disrupted logistics routinely cut monthly delivery figures by 30 to 50 percent for every Chinese automaker. So when Xiaomi posted February deliveries of more than 20,000 vehicles on its official Weibo account on Sunday, the headline number understates what is actually happening: the company is preparing mass production of the next-generation SU7 while its current lineup holds momentum through what is typically the weakest month of the calendar year.

The Fact: Xiaomi delivered more than 20,000 electric vehicles in February 2026, down from more than 39,000 in January, according to Reuters reporting from its Beijing newsroom.
The Delta: The sequential drop is seasonal, not structural. Chinese EV deliveries compress sharply in February every year due to the Lunar New Year holiday and factory closures. The January figure was itself a strong month.
The Production Signal: Xiaomi confirmed it is now preparing mass production of the next-generation SU7 sedan, the most concrete timeline indicator the company has given to date.
The Buyer Impact: If you are considering the current SU7, a next-generation model entering mass production means inventory pressure and pricing shifts on existing stock could arrive sooner than expected.

The February Drop Is a Calendar Story, Not a Demand Story

Xiaomi’s February 2026 deliveries of more than 20,000 vehicles represent a roughly 49 percent sequential decline from January’s 39,000-plus, a figure Reuters attributed to the company’s official Weibo post. That swing looks alarming in isolation but is consistent with how every Chinese automaker performs in February.

The Lunar New Year holiday shuts down factories for one to two weeks, disrupts logistics networks, and delays buyer decisions as tens of millions of workers travel home for the holiday period. BYD, XPeng, Li Auto, and Zeekr all posted sharp sequential drops in February 2025 when the same holiday fell in a similar calendar position. The pattern repeats every year without fail.

The more useful comparison is year-over-year. Xiaomi launched the original SU7 in March 2024 and delivered 136,854 sedans across all of 2024, its first full year of production. In February 2025, the company was still in early ramp-up, posting figures well below the 20,000 threshold it has now cleared. Holding above 20,000 in February 2026 against that prior-year baseline is a better signal of where demand actually sits.

We covered the broader Chinese EV delivery picture for February 2025 in detail, including BYD’s record-breaking overseas sales and XPeng’s 570 percent year-over-year surge. Xiaomi’s trajectory at that time was pointing upward. February 2026 confirms it has not reversed.

Next-Generation SU7 Mass Production Preparation Is the Real News

Xiaomi’s announcement that it is preparing mass production of the next-generation SU7 is the more significant detail buried in Sunday’s Weibo post. The SU7 is the company’s first model and still its volume driver. A successor entering production preparation while the current generation sells above 20,000 units monthly shows Xiaomi compressing its product cycles aggressively, closer to the smartphone cadence its leadership knows than the traditional three-to-five-year automotive replacement cycle.

Xiaomi has not specified what changes the next-generation SU7 will carry. But the competitive context makes the direction clear. Xiaomi’s SU7 has outsold the Tesla Model 3 in China monthly since December 2024, and maintaining that advantage requires staying ahead on software, range, and driver-assistance capability as BYD, XPeng, and others all accelerate their own update cycles.

The SU7 Ultra, priced at 529,900 yuan (approximately $72,750), began deliveries on March 2, 2025, with more than 19,000 orders placed since reservations opened the prior week. That halo product serves a different market segment than the volume SU7. The next-generation standard model is what will determine whether Xiaomi can scale past 50,000 monthly deliveries.

Safety and Regulatory Scrutiny Has Not Slowed Orders

Xiaomi’s delivery momentum runs alongside a complicated safety record that has drawn national regulatory attention in China. A fatal crash in March 2025 killed three university students when an SU7 struck a concrete barrier while its driver-assistance system was active. China’s State Administration for Market Regulation found the system had insufficient recognition capability in certain scenarios.

A second fatal incident in October 2025, where electronic door handles prevented bystanders from rescuing a trapped driver in a burning SU7, prompted further national scrutiny. China responded at a regulatory level. China banned concealed door handles in February 2026, a rule affecting Xiaomi, Tesla, BMW, and several other manufacturers. Xiaomi has not signaled any delay in its production schedule as a result.

For buyers outside China, context from prominent reviewers matters too. Tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee tested the Xiaomi SU7 Max on American roads and described it as a $42,000 product that competes with vehicles costing significantly more. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun has said the company will not sell cars outside China until 2027.

Ford’s Interest in Xiaomi Reflects the Brand’s Growing Weight

In January 2026, the Financial Times reported that Ford and Xiaomi held talks about building EVs together in the United States. Ford denied the report immediately. Chief Communications Officer Mark Truby called it “completely false” and said there was “no truth to it.” But the fact that a report of this kind was taken seriously at all tells you how far Xiaomi has traveled in two years.

Ford CEO Jim Farley had been publicly discussing the SU7 for over a year before the report appeared. He imported one to Chicago and drove it for six months, and called Chinese EV progress “the most humbling thing I have ever seen” at the Aspen Ideas Festival in June 2025. Whether or not the specific FT talks happened, the brand’s weight in that conversation is real.

Xiaomi reached quarterly EV profitability in 19 months. Tesla took five years. The company launched a car and turned it into a credible competitive threat to both domestic and international automakers faster than anyone in the industry predicted.

EVXL’s Take

The February delivery number is not the story. The story is that Xiaomi is already signaling a next-generation SU7 while the current one is still ramping. That is a smartphone product cycle applied to a car, and it is going to create real problems for Western automakers who plan their model refreshes on four-to-five-year timelines.

I’ve covered Xiaomi’s production ramp since before the SU7 Ultra deliveries began in March 2025, and the speed of iteration is the thing that consistently surprises me. When we reported on the door-handle ban in February 2026, most of the coverage focused on regulatory burden. The actual story was that Xiaomi absorbed a fatal incident, a national recall, and new legislation without any measurable disruption to its order books. Rivian faced similar scrutiny at a comparable stage and struggled for months. Xiaomi didn’t blink.

The January-to-February drop from 39,000 to 20,000 will generate breathless coverage in some corners of the EV press. Ignore it. Check back in March, when factories are fully back online and the post-holiday delivery queue clears. That number will tell you something real.

My prediction: Xiaomi crosses 40,000 monthly deliveries again by April 2026 and announces a specific launch timeline for the next-generation SU7 before the end of Q2. The mass production language in Sunday’s Weibo post is too deliberate to be a vague hint. Something concrete is coming soon.

Source: Reuters, March 1, 2026.

Editorial Note: AI tools were used to assist with research and archive retrieval for this article. All reporting, analysis, and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.