The president of Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker Xpeng said the company aims to challenge Tesla in international markets, having tested its self-driving technology in the fiercely competitive home market.
“We are very confident that we can be head-to-head competitors with Tesla,” said Brian Gu Hongdi, vice-chairman and president at Xpeng, in an interview with the South China Morning Post.
Though admitting the US carmaker’s edge as an early entrant in some European markets, Gu noted that Xpeng could be supported by the leadership of China’s automobile industry.
“The Chinese market is probably the most competitive and most innovative autonomous driving market in the world,” Gu said. “The confidence comes from the fact that we are trained in the most (intense) fit gym in the world.”
Gu’s comments come as more Chinese carmakers are expanding the competition in overseas markets to underlying technologies, beyond their initial push to boost exports amid domestic pressures.
Xpeng unveiled its Mona L03 model in Hong Kong on Friday, one week after its debut in mainland China. The compact sport-utility vehicle is scheduled to launch in Munich on Thursday.
Tesla and Xpeng have stuck to visual-only autonomous driving technology, which relies on cameras and artificial intelligence models to support or even replace the driver. Most manufacturers have adopted lidar sensors due to a sharp decline in component costs.
While Tesla has long been regarded as the global leader in self-driving technology, Chinese start-ups like Xpeng are emerging and providing home-grown solutions to global giants like Volkswagen.
He Xiaopeng, chairman and CEO of the Guangzhou-based company, said earlier that the firm would speed up road tests and the launch of its latest autonomous driving technology – Vision Language Action (VLA) 2.0 – overseas in the second half of the year.
The second edition of the VLA model, unveiled in March in Guangzhou, was advertised as delivering “minds-off” Level 4 (L4) autonomous capabilities, compared with the currently prevalent L2 of partial driving automation.
Xpeng’s He set a goal in late April to fully outperform Tesla’s self-driving capabilities in China by August, leveraging the country’s more complex driving environment.
Europe has been an area of focus for Chinese carmakers this year as they are aggressively expanding overseas for higher profits to compensate for weakening demand after a reduction in vehicle purchase tax subsidies for EVs.
The influx of Chinese brands was pushing their Japanese rivals to the edge of the lowest market share in four decades in western Europe.
Xpeng’s Gu also said in April that the firm would accelerate sales in Europe this year, after the market contributed over half of its exports last year.
But Tesla remained the major EV maker in Europe, taking up 2.5 per cent of market share in 32 countries in May. The US giant sold 118,068 all-electric vehicles in the market for the first five months of the year, 57 per cent more than one year ago, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.
Besides Tesla, Xpeng is still facing competition from domestic peers, including industry giant BYD and start-up Leapmotor, whose recorded sales in Europe during the January to May period were more than double those of the previous year.
Gu highlighted Xpeng’s focus on technology rather than prices lower than those of local rivals.
“While most Chinese brands are still viewed as more of an affordability-driven sort of brand, [we] want to position ourselves as a tech-driven brand,” Gu told the SCMP.
He added that Xpeng sold cars that were around 50 per cent more expensive on average than most other Chinese brands in overseas markets, which could prove the local customers’ recognition of the brand’s premium positioning and tech leadership.
“Internationally, [the market is] also getting very competitive,” said Gu, “But it’s just focus on the long-term differentiation … I think we have a very good opportunity there.”
