By Yujie Xue
Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker Xpeng launched its G7 SUV on Thursday, sending another contender into a fierce battle in the premium SUV segment of the world’s largest EV market, where it joins Xiaomi’s recently introduced YU7 in taking on Tesla’s market-leading Model Y.
Dubbed Xpeng’s first “Super AI [artificial intelligence] car”, the G7 starts at 195,800 yuan (US$27,325), with the top-of-the-line model selling for 225,800 yuan, the Guangzhou-headquartered company said during a launch event in Beijing on Thursday.
The car is Xpeng’s first model to feature its in-house Turing AI chip. With three such chips, the EV was able to run an AI large language model with more than 30 billion parameters, the company said. This made the EV the world’s first mass-produced car with Level 3 (L3) self-driving capabilities, said He Xiaopeng, Xpeng’s founder and CEO, at the launch event.
“The G7 is an epoch-making product from Xpeng and also our first new car in 2025,” said He. “Starting today, in Xpeng’s intelligent driving system, there will not only be L2, but we will also bring L3 intelligent-driving computing power to consumers.”
Xpeng unveiled the G7 on June 11 and started presales at 235,800 yuan, placing the car between the company’s G6 and flagship G9 SUVs. The model garnered more than 10,000 pre-orders in 46 minutes, He said in a post on Chinese social-media platform Sina Weibo last month.
L3 is considered a “hands-off” system, but still requires drivers to be responsible for safety and ready to take over, while L4 would allow drivers to take their eyes off the road in designated areas, according to standards set by US-based SAE International.
The G7’s launch followed closely behind the June 26 debut of Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi’s YU7, the company’s second production model and first SUV. Priced at 253,500 yuan, the car secured 200,000 orders within the first three minutes, the Beijing-based company said. Tesla’s Model Y starts at 263,500 yuan.
“The automotive industry has really been caught in an intense competition in the first half of the year,” said He. “I think what everyone should focus on next is competing on technology and quality, rather than on price.”
The Xiaomi YU7 and Xpeng’s G7 had significant differences and would cater to demands from different users, He said in a Weibo post last month. The two cars changed the current market landscape, where a single model dominates, he added, referring to the Model Y.
Xpeng maintained robust vehicle deliveries last month, surpassing its total deliveries for the entire previous year, as government subsidies and heavy discounts led to strong sales in the market. The company reported 34,611 deliveries in June, a 224 per cent increase from a year earlier and a 3.2 per cent rise from May, according to data released by Xpeng on Tuesday. It marked the eighth consecutive month that Xpeng’s monthly deliveries exceeded 30,000 units.
Xpeng aims to start offering Hong Kong consumers cars featuring its Xpeng Navigation Guided Pilot (X NGP) driver-assistance system next year as it gears up to take on Tesla’s FSD (Full Self-Driving) feature outside mainland China, He said in the city last month.