On my way from Bijlmer station to Stellantis I saw him. No, but a scoop? Vague recognition. Chinese right? Fortunately, he made himself known through the boot lid. Oh yes, the Xpeng P7. He wasn’t that scoop, by the way. A week later, Volvogabber Huib saw him chilling out in the open in Amstelveen. Xpeng is already registered with the Chamber of Commerce.
Oh yes, I thought, we’ll get you too. After Aiways and MG and Xeres and actually also Polestar and Lynk, before the next Chinese eruption with Nio and god which PingPong or DongFeng is still waiting for us. The Chinese plug-in wave is getting wings.
That P7 has to compete with the Model 3. Good luck. Soon there will be a press release full of weighty figures and praises about the super cool connectivity and Apple Car Play. It’s safe to say that an Xpeng CEO calls the design that resembles all the other Xpengs and Xeressen we’ll meet as a ‘bold statement’, or warily lets go of premium ambitions.
All right, P7, we see you coming with genuine interest. We’re going to lunch with you. We are going to drive sixty kilometers in circles around a vegan conference center in the heart of the Netherlands. We’ll find something for you. Maybe you won’t disappoint – what can I say, the chance is huge. Pompom, not bad, nice zzzzzztil and plenty of power, infotainment screen ready for the puberchallenge Who has the biggest – and damn, what do the Chinese know to speed up! You’ll be in the paper, P7! And then your career starts on the Dutch market. How it ends, of course, also depends on the price. But if it isn’t low enough to make the public, like the MG ZS, get their hands dirty, there’s only one thing for him to do; at least as good as the benchmark in its class. Which still comes from Tesla.
Xpeng P7
It would be even nicer if he was much better than others. Then you give competition meaning. The Xeres 3 couldn’t, the Aiways U5 couldn’t, the MG Marvel R couldn’t. Excellent average, in terms of driving comfort despite their smaller and larger flaws, all nothing-to-complain-cars. Not useful in the niche of 40-50,000 euros in which the Koreans and even Tesla with the basic Model 3 really have something to offer.
But is it really about who is the best?
Afraid not, and that’s my concern. The last phase of the combustion era was one of an oversupply that eventually became too much for even the causers. No niche so small that a crossover would fit in. The great helmsmen proudly announced a major clean-up of their ranges. Great, I thought, this bungling will be spared us in the current age. Electrification costs the concerns too much money to copy-paste endlessly. My hopes for a healthier, more rational, less niche-obsessed modeling policy have faded. With plug models, the Volkswagen group follows exactly the same breeding and crossing trajectory as before. The suvs come in three sizes of four brands and the gaps between small, medium and large are closed with suv coupes and other inconvenience. Only the GTI versions are now called GTX or Cupra. stellantis ditto; Opel’s body snatch is nearing completion, now only Alfa remains. Identity? After all, it’s all about participating, getting a piece of the market. And now the Chinese are also sitting at the table. Thus, with a plague of locusts of new players, we are heading for the same senseless oversupply as before. That fight only makes sense if it leads to major steps forward, to a hard but fair fight in which the standard bearers in the innovation chain are successfully defeated. But when I saw the consumption display of that rather hefty Model Y drop to an insanely low consumption of 13.2 kWh per 100 kilometers, I knew again how high the bar was – and that no competitor with a two-ton SUV comes close to that score.
So for God’s sake, Xpeng – make the difference.