Chinese electric car maker Xpeng has launched in Germany, starting a European growth technique that may take it into France, Italy and the UK by the top of this yr.

Xpeng will start promoting the G9 SUV and P7 saloon in Germany from May, though it does not plan to deliver the duo to the UK. British consumers will as an alternative be supplied the G6 crossover in right-hand-drive kind.

The 4753mm-long G6 sits on Xpeng’s new SEPA 2.0 platform, which integrates know-how akin to an 800V electrical structure that permits for DC rapid-charging at charges of as much as 480kW. 

In China, The Tesla Model Y rival is priced from ¥209,900 (£22,900) in single-motor, rear-wheel-drive kind. The extra highly effective dual-motor, four-wheel-drive mannequin begins at ¥276,900 (£30,200).

UK costs are anticipated to be considerably greater, nonetheless, after elements akin to import responsibility, homologation and logistics are taken into consideration.

Battery selections are a 66kWh lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) and a 87.5kWh lithium ion pack, which give 360 and 469 miles of vary respectively on the Chinese CLTC check. This is often extra beneficiant than the WLTP check used for the UK market.

“It comes down to economics,” stated Xpeng president Brian Gu of the choice to restricted right-hand-drive improvement to new fashions. “We don’t want to go back to old models; we want the latest technology.”

Gu stated different fashions on the SEPA platform can be developed with right-hand-drive to allow Xpeng to focus on the UK and different RHD markets. 

The firm to date has caught to the extra conventional gross sales of mannequin of signing up seller teams, moderately than promoting to prospects immediately. The identical method will possible apply to the UK as effectively. 

Xpeng is one among crop of a brand new EV makers in China that has adopted the Tesla mannequin of constructing digital-focused EVs with excessive ranges of propriety know-how.