Chinese Tesla rival Xpeng prices G6 SUV 20 per cent below Model Y as the EV firm tries to pull a U-turn on slow sales

The G6 starts at US$29,000 in mainland China, and received 25,000 orders during the 72-hour presale window
Xpeng hopes its new electric vehicle can topple its US rival’s Model Y, which has been selling better than any other SUV model in China

Electric & new energy vehicles

Daniel Renin Shanghai

Published: 10:00pm, 29 Jun 2023

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Chinese electric vehicle (EV) start-up Xpeng has priced its G6 SUV at a 20 per cent discount compared with Tesla’s Model Y, hoping the new model will turn its lacklustre sales around in a cutthroat mainland market.

The G6, which received 25,000 orders within its 72-hour presale period earlier this month, starts at 209,900 yuan (US$29,000), Guangzhou-based Xpeng announced on Thursday evening.

The company will start delivering the SUV to buyers in July.

The basic edition of Tesla’s Shanghai-made Model Y starts at 263,900 yuan.

Xpeng targets Hong Kong with launch of right-hand drive EVs next year

“The EV industry will embrace a new era in the next five years,” He Xiaopeng, co-founder and CEO of Xpeng said during a virtual briefing. “Making cars smarter will become a new trend and Xpeng will unswervingly chase a leading position in technological innovation.”

Xpeng, along with Shanghai-based Nio and Beijing-headquartered Li Auto, is viewed as China’s best response to Tesla, but they are lagging far behind their US rival in the domestic market.

In the first five months of the year, Xpeng delivered 32,815 units, down 38.9 per cent year on year. It reported a 45.9 per cent drop in revenue in the first quarter, and net losses widened by 37.6 per cent.

Tesla, meanwhile, saw shipments up 83.8 per cent year on year, handing 219,893 units to Chinese customers from January to May, with 152,461 of those being the Model Y.

The Model Y sold more than any other model of SUV on the mainland for the period.

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The G6, which was designed to take on the Model Y, can go as far as 755 kilometres on a single charge, while Tesla’s SUV has a driving range of 545km.

The vehicles have a limited ability to drive themselves through the streets of China’s top cities like Beijing and Shanghai using Xpeng’s X NGP (Navigation Guided Pilot) software, which is similar to Tesla’s Full Self Driving (FSD) system.

FSD has not been approved by Chinese authorities and is not operational on vehicles sold in the mainland.

“The G6 is potentially an arch-rival to the Model Y, but it will also face competition from other local carmakers who take on the SUV,” said Eric Han, a senior manager at Suolei, an advisory firm in Shanghai. “Competition in the country’s EV market is getting fiercer as more new models are launched.”

In April, Shanghai-based IM Motors said it will launch its own vehicle similar to the Model Y to tap mainland drivers’ rising preference for battery-powered vehicles.

The G6 is the first model developed under what Xpeng’s founder He Xiaopeng described in April as a new technology platform called SEPA 2.0 Fuyao Global Intelligent Evolution Architecture, which aims to shorten the carmaker’s development cycle by a fifth.

Brian Gu, vice-chairman and president of Xpeng, said last week that the company plans to launch a right-hand drive model in Hong Kong as part of the company’s globalisation strategy.

EV sales in mainland China are expected to rise by 35 per cent this year to 8.8 million units, UBS analyst Paul Gong forecast in April. The projected growth is much lower than the 96 per cent surge recorded in 2022.

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