Xiaomi explains runaway SU7 incident that scared owner into chasing the EV
Xiaomi isn't leaving anything to chance when it comes to its self-driving electric car system, as it recently had to issue a recall after a niche scenario that its ADAS wasn't tested with may have led to the fatal accident with one of its vehicles.
It reacted quickly to launch a full investigation when an SU7 owner complained that his car suddenly drove off from its parking spot in front of his apartment. The Xiaomi EV owner insisted that there hadn't been any input from their side to make the SU7 move, and there was no driver in the car when it started doing so.
The surveillance footage released by the car owner showed that the car was parked at the door when the incident happened, and he and a woman were indoors. After the car suddenly started and drove away, the woman screamed, and he hurriedly chased after her. The owner told the reporter that after the incident, he contacted Xiaomi Auto customer service, and the other party said that they might have accidentally touched the phone, causing the vehicle to start. The car owner disagreed with this and released the full surveillance of the scene, saying that he did not operate the phone when the car started.
Xiaomi didn't deny that the electric sedan started moving autonomously, but after it examined the logs, it explained to the owner that the move followed a command issued by an iPhone 15 Pro Max. "The vehicle's backend data matches the iPhone 15 Pro Max's operation logs, response times, and vehicle exit commands, ruling out any vehicle quality issues," said Xiaomi.
The owner, who had undergone a rather significant scare where he had to chase the car down the street, was initially skeptical about the explanation and demanded the release of the full logs count.
Upon reviewing the logs in detail together with Xiaomi, it turned out that the EV maker was right. An iPhone 15 Pro Max that was connected to the owner's Xiaomi account had sent a remote parking command. Xiaomi's driver-assist software offers an option very similar to Tesla's Smart Summon feature that parks the EV autonomously or "summons" it out of its parking spot.
It's precisely the summoning command that was somehow inadvertently sent from the iPhone by pushing it or touching it. It made the Xiaomi SU7 start maneuvering and moving out of the place it was parked all on its own, causing a rather hair-raising experience for the owner, as can be seen from the video below.
An initial error by a customer service rep contributed to the confusion as to what happened, as per Xiaomi:
During the investigation, with the user's consent, we obtained vehicle backend data and operation logs from two phones with vehicle control permissions (the female owner's iPhone 16 Pro and the male owner's iPhone 15 Pro Max, with corresponding device model identifiers of iPhone 17.1 and iPhone 16.2, respectively). The vehicle's backend data shows that during the time window described by the user, the vehicle received a parking assist command from the iPhone 15 Pro Max, which activated the parking assist feature (activation requires the vehicle to be within close range of the phone's Bluetooth connection) and initiated the exit. When contacting online customer service regarding the user's feedback, they stated that the parking assist command originated from an iPhone 16. We have verified that our online customer service representative confused the device model identifier (iPhone 16,2) with the corresponding device model (iPhone 15 Pro Max) during communication with the user, leading to misunderstanding and miscommunication. We apologize for this and will continue to improve our service efforts.
Still, the fact that he was apparently unaware such a command was sent by the iPhone has started a conversation about the need for more robust safeguards against the involuntary use of Xiaomi's driver-assist system without anyone present in the vehicle.
