Xiaomi EV Factory Tour in Beijing: Production Line, Showroom and Business Exchange

A Xiaomi EV factory tour puts a business delegation inside the plant that a consumer-electronics company built from nothing in under three years. The programme runs at Xiaomi's automotive manufacturing base in Yizhuang, in the south-east of Beijing, and covers the six workshops that turn raw steel and battery cells into a finished car — die casting, stamping, body, paint, battery and final assembly. What a team takes home is not a product walkthrough. It is how a company with no automotive heritage organised itself to build cars at volume, and what that says about entering a capital-intensive industry from outside.

The visit takes place at Xiaomi’s automotive manufacturing base in Yizhuang, Beijing. The site brings together research, production, sales and visitor experiences, connecting product development with manufacturing and customer delivery.

China Innovation Visits coordinates company reception and the sharing session according to the delegation’s industry background, business interests and learning objectives.

Key takeaways

Xiaomi's automotive manufacturing base is in Yizhuang, Beijing — a greenfield plant announced in 2021 and built specifically for the company's own vehicles, not a converted facility inherited from an established carmaker.

The reason to go is not the products on the showroom floor. It is the takt time. The plant reports a car coming off the line roughly every 76 seconds, and seeing that pace next to the automation that produces it is what makes the visit useful to manufacturing and operations teams.

The headline exhibits are the integrated die-casting process — where a large single part replaces dozens of welded components — the body shop with more than a thousand robots, and end-of-line inspection carried out by machine vision rather than by eye.

The plant is a case study in vertical integration and speed of construction. The company broke ground without a legacy production line to work around, which let it design the material flow first and the building second.

Location and travel

The programme takes place at Xiaomi’s automotive manufacturing base in the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Area, commonly known as Yizhuang, in southeastern Beijing.

Transport can be coordinated from the delegation’s hotel or arrival point. The visitor entrance, meeting location and transfer arrangements are confirmed during planning. Travel time depends on the departure point and traffic conditions.

Location — Xiaomi's automotive manufacturing base in the Yizhuang Economic and Technological Development Area, in the south-east of Beijing. The same district is home to a cluster of advanced-manufacturing and robotics facilities, so a Xiaomi visit can be combined with other industrial stops without long transfers.

Getting there — Yizhuang sits well outside central Beijing, and the drive from the city centre takes roughly 45 to 60 minutes depending on traffic. Delegations normally stay in the city and travel out for the day. We plan the transport as part of the programme, including pickup from your hotel and the return leg.

Duration — Half a day for the guided plant walk, or a full day when the visit is combined with other Beijing industry stops or with a thematic session on manufacturing and product strategy.

Format — A guided walk through the visitor route of the workshops, a briefing on the manufacturing system and the automation behind it, and a discussion session with company representatives. The exact workshop sequence is arranged with the site and confirmed during planning rather than assumed — production areas can be closed at short notice for model changeovers.

Best suited to — Automotive and electric-vehicle teams; manufacturing, operations and industrial-engineering groups; automation, robotics and machine-vision suppliers; supply-chain and quality leaders; and business leaders studying how a new entrant builds a factory and a brand at the same time.

Main themes — Integrated die casting and body-in-white, production takt and line balancing, automation density and its limits, machine-vision inspection, battery pack assembly, and the crossover from consumer electronics into automotive.

Why visit Xiaomi EV?

Many people know Xiaomi through its phones and smart devices. Its automotive factory shows another stage of the company’s development: building a new business that brings together vehicle development, production and customer service.

The thematic exchange adds a management perspective, helping participants connect their observations with the business questions most relevant to their organisation.

Most car plants a delegation can visit were built by companies that have been making vehicles for decades. Their processes are settled, their supply chains are mature and their visitors usually come away with a picture of an industry running well. The Xiaomi plant is a different kind of case. It is a factory built by a company that entered car making in 2021 with no automotive history, and the interesting question is not what the machines do but how the decisions behind them were made.

That difference matters to teams who are themselves facing a step change — a new product line, a new market, a new production technology, or a shift from assembling someone else's design to owning the whole thing. Xiaomi's answer was to build the plant around the intended pace of production rather than adapt an existing building, to buy automation density up front, and to accept a very high capital outlay in exchange for control over quality and cost per unit. Whether that trade is right depends on your business, but seeing the result makes the trade concrete.

There is also a visitor management angle. The plant sits inside a district that Beijing has been developing as an advanced-manufacturing and robotics cluster, so a delegation with wider industrial interests can see more than one company in a single day without crossing the city. For groups based in Beijing, that makes it one of the most efficient industrial stops available. If your programme is built around the capital, this fits naturally into a broader Beijing technology tour.

What the visit includes

The plant is organised as six core workshops — die casting, stamping, body, paint, battery and final assembly — laid out so that material flows through them in sequence with as little backtracking as possible. That sounds like a detail until you compare it with plants where a new model forces material to travel back across the site. The layout was a design choice made possible by starting from empty ground, and it is the thread that connects everything else you see.

Production-line visit

Visit the production line to understand the vehicle-manufacturing process, observe cooperation between equipment and employees, and learn how production activities and quality checks connect.

The factory includes workshops for die casting, stamping, body construction, painting, batteries and final assembly. The areas included in the visit follow the company’s confirmed visitor route and production arrangements.

Integrated die casting is the most talked-about process in the plant and the one delegations ask about most. Instead of stamping and welding together a large number of separate steel panels to form a structural section, the process casts a single large aluminium part in one shot. The company has described a cycle in the region of 100 seconds for a part that replaces more than seventy individual components.

The manufacturing argument for this is straightforward: fewer parts means fewer welds, fewer fixtures, less dimensional drift and a shorter body shop. The counter-argument is equally real and worth raising with your host — a single large casting concentrates risk, because a defect or a design change affects the whole part rather than one panel, and repair strategies have to be redesigned around it. Asking how the plant handles that trade is one of the most productive questions a delegation can bring.

The body shop: robot density and a 76-second takt

The body shop is where the scale of the investment becomes visible. The plant deploys more than 1,100 robots across its workshops, and in the body and assembly areas the density is high enough that the line reads as a continuous mechanical process rather than a series of manual stations. The company reports that key processes run at full automation.

The number to hold on to is takt — the interval at which a completed unit comes off the line. Xiaomi has cited a figure in the region of 76 seconds. Takt is the single best lens for a visiting operations team, because it converts a marketing claim about speed into an engineering constraint: every station, every robot and every logistics route has to fit inside that interval. When you walk the line, the useful exercise is to pick one station and work out what has to be true for it to complete its task in that window, every time, without buffer.

The paint shop and the battery line

Paint is the part of a car plant that visitors tend to understand least and that manufacturers guard most closely, because it drives both cost and perceived quality. The interesting questions here are about energy, water and yield — how the shop manages oven load, how it handles colour changeovers, and how it catches defects before they reach final assembly.

The battery workshop is the newer discipline. Battery pack assembly combines high-voltage safety, precise joining processes and traceability down to the cell level. For delegations from outside automotive — especially those from energy, electronics or industrial equipment — this is often the workshop that maps most directly onto their own production problems, because the process discipline looks familiar even when the product does not.

Final assembly and machine-vision inspection

Final assembly is the most human part of the plant, and that is the point. Even in a heavily automated factory, the last stage is where variation is highest and where judgement still has a role. Watching how the plant splits work between people and machines at this stage is more instructive than counting robots.

End-of-line inspection is where machine vision shows up most clearly. The company has reported inspection accuracy above 99.9 percent, and the machinery involved is doing what a human inspector cannot: checking the same feature on every unit, at takt, without fatigue. For quality leaders the questions to bring are about false-reject rates, how the models are retrained when a design changes, and what happens to the data the cameras generate.

The delivery centre and the showroom

The visitor route usually ends in the customer-facing part of the site, where finished cars are handed over and displayed. It is worth treating this as an operations exhibit rather than a retail one. The question is how a company that built its distribution around online orders and shopping-mall stores handles the physical handover of a high-value product, and how that handover loop feeds back into production planning.

Xiaomi EV showroom

Visit the showroom to learn about Xiaomi EV’s development, representative vehicles and product direction. Connect observations from the production line with vehicle design and customer experience.

Displayed vehicles and available exhibits follow the showroom’s arrangements.

Thematic sharing and business exchange

The sharing session is prepared around the customer’s needs. Relevant subjects include Xiaomi’s automotive development, manufacturing management, product innovation, supply-chain coordination and customer experience.

Manufacturing and management in practice

Quality and customer delivery

Quality management connects work across the production process. Checks help identify problems before they affect later activities or reach customers.

Xiaomi’s official factory introduction describes the use of automated inspection equipment across manufacturing processes.

This creates a link between factory operations and customer expectations. Product quality, delivery reliability and service experience depend on cooperation across the organisation.

From consumer electronics to automotive manufacturing

Xiaomi’s automotive business provides a case for understanding how an established company develops in a new industry. Its consumer-electronics background connects with the additional capabilities required for vehicle development, manufacturing and delivery.

The plant is the physical output of a decision made in 2021, when the company announced it would enter the automotive business. The programme reported a total investment in excess of 63 billion yuan and a planned footprint of more than one million square metres, combining research, production, testing and sales on one site.

What makes the story useful to a delegation is not the size of the number. It is the sequencing. A company with no car-making experience had to decide, in a short space of time, how much to make itself and how much to buy; how much automation to install before it knew its own volumes; and how to hire and organise a manufacturing workforce from outside the industry. Those are the same questions that face any company moving from design and assembly into owning its own production, whatever sector it is in.

There is a parallel worth drawing for teams studying China's manufacturing sector more broadly. Xiaomi's plant sits in a lineage of very recent greenfield factories built by newcomers — the same pattern appears in battery manufacturing at CATL's Ningde base and in the older automotive plants that established makers run. Seeing two of them in one programme makes the comparison far sharper than seeing either alone.

Who the programme suits

The same guided walk yields very different notes depending on who is taking them. It is worth deciding before you arrive which of these your group is, because it changes which questions are worth the host's time.

Your interest is takt, buffer and line balance. Ask where the plant carries inventory deliberately and where it has eliminated it; ask what happens at a station when the upstream process stops; and ask how long it took to bring the line up to its current rate. A greenfield plant is unusually willing to discuss ramp-up, because there is no legacy process to protect.

Your interest is the automation density decision — what was automated, what was deliberately left manual, and why. The most useful question is not how many robots there are but which tasks the plant tried to automate and then reverted to people, and what drove that reversal.

Your interest is the crossover from consumer electronics. Ask how software and hardware release cycles were reconciled with automotive validation cycles, and how the company structures the interface between the car programme and the consumer business. This is the part of the story that has no close precedent, and it is why the visit is not simply a car-plant tour.

Your interest is traceability and incoming quality. Ask how far back the plant traces a defect, how suppliers are qualified, and how the machine-vision data is used in supplier conversations rather than only in internal reporting.

How to arrange a Xiaomi EV factory tour

China Innovation Visits coordinates company reception, programme planning and language requirements. Planning at least 30 days ahead is recommended to allow time to align the visit with the factory’s schedule.

Provide the preferred date, participant profile, industry background and learning objectives. Identify the main subject for the exchange, such as manufacturing management, product development or Xiaomi’s automotive business.

Visit programme

09:30–10:30 — Production-line and showroom visits

Observe the production line along the confirmed visitor route, then visit the showroom to learn about Xiaomi EV’s development and representative products.

10:30–12:00 — Thematic sharing, business exchange and Q&A

Participate in a session prepared around the delegation’s priorities, followed by discussion and questions on the agreed subject.

The programme lasts approximately two and a half hours. Hotel transfers are additional.

Specific arrangements, timings and the itinerary are subject to the final actual programme.

Combine with other company visits

The programme can form part of a Beijing technology tour. A visit to Lenovo’s Beijing headquarters adds a perspective on international business and organisational management.

For a programme across cities, CATL’s Ningde base provides a battery-manufacturing perspective. Combining the two companies helps teams understand different parts of the electric-vehicle industry.

The manufacturing base is in Yizhuang, Beijing, and this is where the plant visit takes place. Because Yizhuang is also an advanced-manufacturing and robotics cluster, the day can be extended with other industrial stops in the same district — including robotics and automation companies — which is useful for delegations whose interest is the broader ecosystem rather than one company.

For groups whose programme is based elsewhere, Beijing is the natural anchor. A Xiaomi visit combines well with companies that have already been through the same transition. Lenovo's Beijing headquarters is a useful counterweight: an established hardware group that globalised its manufacturing and its organisation decades before Xiaomi built its first plant. For programmes that also want to see automotive and EV manufacturing in other regions, a company visit programme can be built across cities so that the same set of questions is put to more than one producer.

Practical notes

Comfortable casual shoes are recommended for walking and standing during the visit. Business-casual clothing is suitable.

Follow staff instructions and remain on the designated visitor route. Any specific site requirements are communicated before the visit.

Closed-toe shoes are required and sandals will not be permitted inside the production areas. Long trousers are strongly recommended. Yizhuang is outside the city centre, so plan for a full day even if the plant section is half a day.

Photography inside the workshops is restricted. Assume that phones and cameras are not permitted on the production route unless the site has confirmed otherwise in advance, and expect that any permitted photography will be limited to designated areas. Delegations that need images for internal reporting should raise this during planning rather than on the day.

Production schedules change. Model changeovers, quality campaigns or customer visits can close a workshop at short notice, and no host will guarantee a particular line in advance for a future date. This is normal in automotive and is not a sign of a badly arranged visit. The mitigation is flexibility in the itinerary and a substitute of equivalent interest rather than a cancelled half-day.

English interpretation is provided on site. The technical vocabulary of automotive manufacturing — takt, body-in-white, die casting, end-of-line — does not always translate cleanly, so we brief the interpreter on your delegation's background beforehand and ask you for a short list of the terms that matter most to your group.

The plant is worth a day not because it is the most automated factory in China, but because it is the clearest recent example of a company deciding how much of the value chain to own — and then paying for that decision up front.

Questions before a Xiaomi EV visit

What group size can be accommodated? Visits are normally arranged for groups of more than 10 and fewer than 20 participants. Smaller groups may apply for reception, subject to confirmation by the company.

Do participants need an automotive background? No. The programme is suitable for participants interested in manufacturing, product innovation and business management, including those from other industries.

Can the sharing session focus on our interests? Yes. Learning priorities can be proposed during planning. The theme, speaker and content are coordinated with the company.

Does the programme include a test drive? The standard programme includes the production line, showroom and thematic exchange. Any driving experience requires separate confirmation.

Can we photograph or film the production line? Photography and recording require prior permission from the company and may be limited to designated areas.

What if production arrangements change? The visitor route may be adjusted according to the factory’s operations. Any changes are coordinated with the company.

Is the visit open to international business delegations? Yes, subject to advance arrangement and confirmation by the host. English interpretation is provided, and we recommend planning at least 30 days ahead.

How long does the visit take? The standard programme takes approximately two and a half hours, from 09:30 to 12:00. It extends to a full day when the visit is combined with other stops or with an additional session.

Is the visit suitable for people from outside the automotive industry? Yes. The programme also suits manufacturing, product-innovation and business-management teams, including participants from other industries.

Can the visit be combined with other companies? Yes. The programme can form part of a Beijing technology tour, with additional visits selected around a common theme, such as Lenovo’s Beijing headquarters for an organisational-management perspective.

Arrange your Xiaomi EV factory tour

Contact China Innovation Visits with the preferred date and learning priorities to coordinate a Xiaomi EV programme suited to the delegation.