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Xpeng announces NZ intent with G6
Richard Bosselman
Sept 12, 2025
Auckland sales operation to open soon; four more outlets to follow.
THE latest highly ambitious Chinese electric car brand set to start selling fare here soon has a boss who this week predicted impending doom for most of the makers in his country.
Xpeng has confirmed it will start business before the end of 2025, kicking off with the G6 (above), a medium-sized coupe SUV, in its recently-updated format.
Intent is to expand further from early 2026, with outlets in Wellington, Christchurch, Tauranga and Hamilton cited.
Xpeng is another car making newcomer; the Guangzhou-headquartered auto firm founded in 2014 and only began its global expansion in 2020, starting in Norway then progressing through Europe, then into the United Kingdom and Ireland.
It’s been in Australia for almost a year and the regional office there seems set to guide the New Zealand operation.
The goal to establish a presence in 60 countries and regions by the end of this year seems likely to be met, as global growth has surpassed expectation.
Xpeng strives to show itself as high-tech smart mobility company - to point it is actively involved in a flying car project called eVTOL x2 - but has latterly also worked to show its cars have dynamic aptitude and are also out to make strong styling statements.
The G6 was the make’s first car and seems a good starter for NZ, as the SUV sector accounts for almost 70 percent of passenger car sales now.
The G6 lineup here has yet to be fully unpacked, but it seems likely to be as it goes in Australia, which has had Xpeng for a year already and sells G6 for $61,000 and upward.
Across the Tasman the five-seater delivers in Standard and Long Range formats, with ranges of 435 kilometres and 570km respectively. Both are rear-wheel drive and have 440Nm of torque, but power in the Standard peaks at 190kW while the Long Range has 210kW.
Last December G6 was awarded a five star crash test score by national auditor Australasian New Car Assessment programme.
Xpeng has other models developed for export markets. These include larger cars, the G9 and X9 (which is a seven seater) and at the IAA Mobility auto show in Munich, Germany, this week it unveiled an upgraded version of its flagship, the P7 Plus (below).
At the show the brand’s chief executive also announced intent to go global with a mass market budget model line, called Mona, as a move to boost competition with Chinese rivals and established car makers in the EV arena.
The Mona models are intended to be cheaper than the G6, which Xpeng considers to be a high-end car.
One version in China is selling for less than $NZ18,000. Europe is the first export destination, with sales starting there in 2026.
Xpeng CEO He Xiaopeng also made headlines when he doubled down on his belief that only a handful of Chinese carmakers will survive in the coming years as many go out of business.
In Germany he said the collapse is already happening and also signalled his brand is open to acquiring other electric carmakers.
China is famous for its “price wars” in which domestic makers aggressively lower prices in order to reach sales targets — even to the point of getting quite financially uncomfortable.
There is speculation some that have become export involvers offset the impact by implementing fat profit margins into cars they sell overseas.
Xiaopeng first expressed belief in January that this year and the 24 months following could be the beginning of a harsh time for car makers in China.
“The period from 2025 to 2027 marks the elimination round in the automotive industry,” he stated then, adding that many brands will either go under or be swallowed up by others.
He believes China might reduce to have just a handful of brands he recently said no Chinese automaker has yet firmly secured a ticket to what he called the “final five”.
When announcing its test result for G6, ANCAP identified strong scores for its ability to avoid collisions, with high marks achieved for AEB performance with another vehicle, pedestrian, cyclist, and motorcyclist.
High scores were also awarded the protection of the driver and passenger occupants in the frontal offset, side, and oblique pole test.
The G6 is fitted with a centre airbag to prevent injuries to front seat occupants in a side impact crash, which was assessed as Adequate for prevention of excursion (movement towards the other side of the vehicle) in the far side impact tests, however minor head contact was noted in the occupant-to-occupant scenario and a penalty was applied.
