Last week, Xpeng opened pre-orders in Australia with the company’s local website stating first deliveries to occur by Q4 of this year.
Now the first few test vehicles have been spotted by an EV fan in Goulburn, NSW. Multiple vehicles with Victorian number plates were spotted by Justin W and shared in the electric vehicles for Australia facebook page.
The blue vehicle spotted was in a right-hand-drive configuration while the orange one was a left-hand-drive build.
Interestingly enough, the blue in the right-hand-drive configuration is a colour currently not offered on Xpeng’s local pre-order configurator. After spotting this, Justin W posted the photo by saying: “Saw an Xpeng G6 in Goulburn last night. Very impressive! First RHD registered in Australia for now. Look out for them.”
The orange colour on the other hand is being offered for interested buyers with the Standard and Extended variants on offer in our market.
On the back of this sighting, curious EV followers asked how these cars looked in person. To which, Justin replied: “Very striking! It’s a highly appealing looking unit.”
Other observers were comparing the upcoming Xpeng G6 to a potential SUV for the Australian market by BYD, the BYD Sealion 7. One said: “Well now it’s a dilemma Sealion 7 or Xpeng G6.. reviewers are excited about Xpeng tech and suspension.”
Another fan made a similar comparison, complimenting the looks of the BYD over the Xpeng “Think I prefer the aesthetics of the Sealion 7 but see what the reviews are like for both. Good to be spoilt for choice.”
BYD Australia hasn’t officially confirmed any of the specifications or pricing of the Sealion 7 for our local market and as of June, very few have even been delivered to customers in its home market of China.
With that in mind, it’s likely that the Sealion 7 will get here much later than the Xpeng G6, offering drivers more electric choices in the very popular electric SUV segment.
The market leader is Australia’s best-selling car in the country, the Model Y. Both these vehicles will need to be priced right in order to make a dent in Tesla’s solid sales performance thus far.
Having said that, the Xpeng G6, without an official price, appears to be a strong offering. It comes with two variants which include the G6 Standard and Long Range.
Locally, both are being offered with a rear-wheel-drive powertrain that is based on an 800V architecture which allows for faster charging. It’s expected to deliver DC fast-charging speeds of up to 215 kW.
The Standard model offering includes a 66 kWh lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery which gets a range up to 435 km. This variant can accelerate from 0-100 km/h in just 6.9 seconds, powered by a 190 kW motor that delivers up to 440 Nm of torque.
There is also a variant with a larger 87.5 kWh battery offering a range of up to 570 km.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.