Analysis-China’s Xpeng takes cues from Tesla for its new EV platform By Reuters

By Paul Lienert

(Reuters) – Chinese language electrical car maker Xpeng (NYSE:) Inc is the newest producer hoping to economize and velocity improvement and manufacturing by shifting to a digital car structure – an strategy that bears a hanging resemblance to Tesla (NASDAQ:) Inc’s.

Unveiled this week forward of the Shanghai Auto Present, Xpeng’s Good Electrical Platform Structure 2.0 has primarily the identical basis that Tesla has developed over the previous two years with its Mannequin Y: giant single-piece entrance and rear underbody castings, joined within the heart by a large battery pack that helps to strengthen the car physique construction.

The primary Xpeng mannequin to make use of the SEPA 2.0 platform, a compact SUV referred to as G6, was unveiled at this week’s Shanghai present and can also be startlingly shut in dimensions and form to the Mannequin Y. Xpeng has stated the G6 can be priced from just below $30,000, almost $10,000 lower than the lowest-priced Shanghai-built Mannequin Y.

“It is apparent the design of the (G6) got here from the Mannequin Y,” trade analyst Sandy Munro advised Reuters. “This isn’t a shock. (Tesla CEO) Elon Musk has stated he is aware of different firms are going to repeat him.”

Six-year-old Xpeng is one in all a number of Chinese language newcomers, a gaggle that features Nio (NYSE:) and Li Auto, competing not solely with Tesla however extra established home producers, together with market chief BYD and Geely.

Primarily based in Guangzhou, Xpeng is called for founder and CEO He Xiaopeng, the previous head of Alibaba (NYSE:)’s Cellular BG unit, who based the automaker in 2017.

Xpeng’s simplified car platform design – in impact, a three-piece body that’s each versatile and scalable – saves on components, tooling, improvement and meeting time, and seems to have been lifted from Tesla, in accordance with Munro.

Such a platform has the potential to provide Tesla, Xpeng and different automakers contemplating this strategy a brand new weapon to assist restore margins hit by current value wars in China and different markets. 

In Tesla’s case, that primary platform is the important thing component within the so-called unboxed meeting course of the automaker revealed at its March 1 Investor Day. Tesla executives stated then that the brand new course of, which it expects to implement subsequent 12 months on the firm’s new plant in Mexico, will allow it to dramatically shrink the manufacturing unit footprint and halve manufacturing prices.

Tesla believes the brand new meeting course of it’s constructing across the simplified platform will allow it to place a sub-$30,000 electrical car into the market throughout the subsequent two years.

Xpeng describes SEPA 2.0 as a “sensible EV structure” that integrates a software program, knowledge and {hardware} platform referred to as X-EEA, in addition to a brand new Xmart car working system that leverages synthetic intelligence, sensors and software program to manage in-vehicle providers and features. All elements had been developed in-house, the corporate stated. 

To provide autos primarily based on the brand new platform, a “sensible manufacturing system” can be rolled out at Xpeng’s Zhaoqing and Guangzhou vegetation over the subsequent two years as SEPA 2.0 is deployed throughout at the least 10 future fashions, beginning in late 2024 with the brand new G6 SUV.