A New Car If Your Xiaomi Catches Fire: How the Dragonscale Battery’s Lifetime Warranty Works

Xiaomi shows a surprising level of confidence in its new batería Dragonscale. In addition to offering a lifetime warranty, the manufacturer even promises that, in case of a fire caused by a manufacturing defect, the owner will receive a brand-new car, identical to the original configuration of the burned one.

As it readies its entry into the European market, with Germany serving as the beachhead, Xiaomi continues investing in its own batteries. The Dragonscale, with a capacity of up to 76 kWh, is its latest development.

A battery marketed as completely safe

The Dragonscale battery was developed in collaboration with CALB and Sunwoda, but the brand did not merely outsource the design: it participated directly in the development of the cells and in overseeing their production. CALB supplies lithium-ion cells for a 76 kWh pack, while Sunwoda produces an LFP version, with a more limited capacity of only 52 kWh.

The Xiaomi Skynomad N70 and N90 will be the first models to be equipped with Dragonscale, with an advertised range of up to 505 km according to the Chinese CLTC cycle, about 220 to 250 km in real-world use (it’s rather modest, but the Skynomad are extended-range EVs, with a 1.5 turbo gasoline engine). The sedan SU7 and the SUV YU7 will continue for now with cells from CATL and FinDreams (BYD’s subsidiary).

But this lifetime guarantee is not without conditions, and there are many. Only the first purchaser of the vehicle can benefit from them. Taxis, ride-hailing cars, rental vehicles, and used vehicles are excluded. In addition, Xiaomi’s connected services must remain active at all times and maintenance must be performed exclusively within the brand’s official network.

In practice, if a manufacturing-origin defect of the Dragonscale causes a fire that renders the vehicle unusable, Xiaomi will replace it entirely. However, if the fire results from a collision or an impact beneath the chassis, Xiaomi limits itself to compensating the difference between the insured value of the vehicle and the payout received.

This initiative is framed within a stricter regulatory context in China. Since July 1, 2026, the GB 38031-2025 standard requires a new series of tests for electric vehicles. This standard mandates tests in which thermal runaway is triggered in a cell and the entire battery must resist, without burning or exploding, for at least two hours. The text also requires a crash test under the battery and a short-circuit test after 300 cycles of fast charging, to assess durability.

Xiaomi claims to easily exceed these requirements. In a test conducted at 55 °C with a fully charged battery, the thermal runaway triggered in one cell did not propagate to adjacent cells.

The pack also withstood a 500-joule impact with a 25 mm punch. It is a force equivalent to dropping a 7 kg bowling ball from the third floor, about 7 meters, when the Chinese standard only requires 150 joules and 30 mm (as if dropping the same ball from a height of only 2 m). According to the manufacturer, the battery continued to function even after such a strong impact.

With this warranty Xiaomi clearly aims to reassure the public on a sensitive issue, the fires involving electric cars related to batteries that frequently make headlines. It is also a commercial gesture to level the playing field with Chery in China, which has applied the same warranty and under the same conditions to some of its cars since last July.

Moreover, it should be noted that the Chinese manufacturer has been linked to two highly publicized fatal accidents in China. Since those incidents, Xiaomi has created a committee dedicated to this issue. This lifetime guarantee thus serves both as a marketing argument and as an attempt to reassure a Chinese customer base still shaped by those events.

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