Keeping in stride with fellow Tesla rival NIO, Chinese automakers Xpeng Motors and Li Auto appear to be putting pressure on Tesla in the world’s largest auto market with record sales.
Li Auto and Xpeng Motors sold record numbers of cars in July, with Li Auto having sold a total of 8,589 units and Xpeng having sold 8,040 units, according to the South China Morning Post. The sales numbers represent 251 and 228 percent sales increases for the brands year over year, respectively.
Independent Shanghai-based analyst Gao Shen said, “For China’s EV start-ups like Xpeng and Li Auto, a monthly sales of 10,000 units will be a meaningful threshold to target because after exceeding that level, a carmaker will be viewed as a powerful player in the automotive industry.”
China’s Xpeng P5 Pricing Unveiled, Undercuts Tesla Model 3 https://t.co/xzKO5tyVAu
— TeslaNorth.com (@RealTeslaNorth) July 19, 2021
On Saturday, Xpeng also said that it would be building a new production facility in Wuhan, within the central Hubei province. The Guangdong-based company also raised $14 billion HKD ($1.8 billion USD) in another primary Hong Kong listing last month, in addition to the company’s $2 billion USD raised in a Hong Kong IPO in June.
Xpeng also settled a lawsuit with Tesla earlier this year, over an ex-Tesla employee stealing source code from Autopilot and sharing it with XMotors, the U.S. arm of Xpeng.
