Xiaomi's Dragonscale battery promises a free replacement car if it catches fire

Xiaomi has taken the wraps off a new EV battery called Dragonscale (Longjia), developed together with cell suppliers CALB and Sunwoda, and paired it with an unusually bold pledge: if the pack catches fire, the company will make it right — up to and including handing over a brand-new car.

Specifically, a self-ignition traced to a quality defect earns the owner a free replacement vehicle of identical specification and trim. Fires triggered by collisions or underbody damage are covered too, with Xiaomi promising to pay whatever gap remains between the insurance settlement and the car's market value before the incident. The offer comes with strings attached, however: it applies only to the first owner using the car privately — no rideshare, rental or second-hand vehicles — and requires an active subscription to Xiaomi's connected services plus servicing at official centers.

On the engineering side, Xiaomi claims the pack beats China's national benchmarks on cycle life and more, citing millisecond-level high-voltage isolators, redundant insulation and a self-developed "Cloud BMS" that polls cell data ten times as often as the standard requires. The company says a single-cell fire stays contained even in testing at 55°C with a full charge.

Dragonscale debuts on September 7 alongside the Skynomad EREV SUV family, with the N90 and N70 expected to carry it at launch. Xiaomi has not said whether the SU7 sedan or YU7 SUV will follow — both currently run CATL and BYD FinDreams cells. The stakes are real: Xiaomi delivered 31,267 cars in China in July 2026, nearly half its December 2025 tally of 50,212, and was losing more than $5,600 per vehicle in Q1 2026.