New mid-sized SUV will carry upmarket Chinese EV maker into UK showrooms
ILLYA VERPRAET
TESTED 10.6.24, UTRECHT, NETHERLANDS ON SALE NOVEMBER
Yes, it’s another electric SUV out of China that is claimed to be smart, digital-first and sustainable. It has a big touchscreen inside and one of those light bars as well. Novel. The company behind it describes itself as a start-up led by a tech entrepreneur and it has European expansion plans that include the UK (right-hand-drive cars are due in November).
In the bursting-at-the-seams medium electric SUV class that contains the Tesla Model Y, Skoda Enyaq, Hyundai Ioniq 5 and many, many others, Xpeng is going to need something a bit more eye-catching to draw people’s attention. It doesn’t help that its new G6 looks rather a lot like a Model Y with some slimmer lights.
There are three versions: the single-motor Standard Range, single-motor Long Range and dual-motor Performance. That very closely mirrors Tesla’s way of doing things, and the range figures match, almost mile for mile, those for the equivalent Model Ys on 20in wheels.
The G6 has 800V electricals, though, like the Porsche Taycan and various Hyundai Group EVs, which allows seriously fast rapid charging: 215kW for the 66kWh lithium-iron-phosphate battery in the Standard Range or 280kW for the 87.5kWh nickel-manganese-cobalt battery in the Long Range and the Performance. In both cases, that works out to a 10-80% charge in 20 minutes.
So you get something that looks quite a lot like the Model Y, has almost identical dimensions, goes just as far and charges a smidgen more quickly but, in Europe at least, is a couple of thousand euros cheaper than the Model Y, model for model. And that’s before you put the bigger wheels, a paint colour or the white interior on the Tesla, all of which cost a grand or more. On the Xpeng, only the colours cost extra, and then just €800 (£680).
In the Netherlands, where I’m conducting this first drive, the G6 costs the equivalent of £36,320, £40,545 and £43,925 in Standard Range, Long Range and Performance forms respectively. I’m told it might end up a little pricier in the UK, due to the inconvenience of Brexit and converting it to right-hand drive, but it would still be strong value compared with rivals.
If it’s cheaper, you might expect it all to be of lower quality. Not so, even if it’s not especially distinguishing either. Everything from the interior to the way it drives is as forgettable as the design, but in quite a nice �
