BEIJING, March 25 (Reuters) -

Xiaomi's ( XIACF ) CEO said on Monday his goal for the firm's first

electric vehicle was that it would be the "best looking, easiest

to drive and smartest car" priced below 500,000 yuan ($69,424),

as the Chinese electronics maker gears up for orders this week.

The company will on Thursday evening announce its

official price range and start taking orders for the car, dubbed

the SU7, with the SU short for Speed Ultra. CEO Lei Jun's

comments, made on his official Weibo account, mark the first

time the company has confirmed the upper end of its price range.

Anticipation for the car has been

building up

since Xiaomi ( XIACF ) unveiled the vehicle in December and announced

it aimed to become one of the world's top five automakers. Lei

has touted it as having technology capable of delivering

acceleration better than Tesla cars and Porsche's EVs.

Xiaomi ( XIACF ) stores in China also began displaying the car on

Monday, with prospective customers and car bloggers lining up to

get a close view of the "ocean blue" version. In addition, the

company uploaded its "Xiaomi Car" app to Chinese app stores.

The SU7 will come in two versions - one with a driving

range of up to 668km (415 miles) on a single charge and another

with a range of up to 800km. By comparison, Tesla's Model S has

a range of up to 650km.

China's fifth-largest smartphone maker has been seeking

to diversify into EVs amid stagnating demand for smartphones - a

plan it first flagged in 2021. Other Chinese tech companies that

have partnered with automakers to develop EVs include telecoms

giant Huawei HWT.UL and search engine firm Baidu ( BIDU ).

Xiaomi ( XIACF ) has pledged to invest $10 billion in autos over a

decade and is one of the few new players in China's EV market to

gain approval from authorities, who have been reluctant to add

to the supply glut.

Its cars are being produced by a unit of state-owned

automaker BAIC Group in a Beijing factory with an

annual capacity of 200,000 vehicles.

($1 = 7.2021 Chinese yuan renminbi)