New Chinese competitor emerges to take on Tesla in Europe, including Ireland

There are about 100 viable car companies in China and many of them have their sights now set more and more on the European market.

Some of them, such as BYD and MG, are already being sold in Ireland, but another has just arrived. This latest company, Expeng, won't be the last either.

In the same week as DeepSeek’s AI emerged from almost nowhere to upend global tech giants and panic stock markets, another Chinese car company you may never have heard of rolled into Ireland. And Xpeng has Tesla very much in focus in terms of new and conquest sales.

Two things that have characterised this wave of Chinese cars are price and standard levels of equipment, Chinese companies having learned that both these factors are what enabled Japanese and Korean companies to gain a foothold in Europe.

Old motor industry hands will remind you that when Toyota’s Corolla arrived in Ireland all those years ago, its big selling points were the price and the fact that it has a factory-fitted radio as standard.

Xpeng’s first car on the Irish market - the G6 coupe SUV - could hardly be more technologically advanced for where we are at the moment.

Many European and American car companies, struggling to deal with old work practices and dated production lines, have been moving at locomotive speed. By comparison, the Chinese, whose EV production lines are built specifically for modern production methods, are operating more in line with a Japanese Shinkansen bullet train schedule.

Despite having only been established only 10 years ago, Xpeng has already produced half a million cars and has been to the fore in testing flying cars - essentially drone propelled cockpits of the future.

Shaping the rather oval profile of the G6 was the work of JuanMa Lopez, a Spanish designer who led the team on the Lamborghini Gallardo Spider - bringing such people on board is another feature of Chinese production logic.

There are two versions of the G6 - a standard one with a 66 kWh battery and a long-range one with a 75 kWh battery. A range of 435km is claimed for the former and a range of 570km for the latter (note previous caveats on all manufacturers’ claims for range in real-world conditions).

Now for the big selling point. The G6 has an exceptionally spacious interior and is a relatively big car. Think of its direct competitor - the Tesla Model Y - and you have an idea, yet the standard model comes in at €42,000 and the long-range version at €49,440. The entry level Tesla Y, on the other hand, starts at €46,990. These prices include Government grants.

A brief drive in the G6 revealed an almost bewildering level of technology controlling the majority of functions. You have a laptop-sized centre screen that presents an array of functions and you touch your way around through a huge menu.

This even includes wing mirror adjustment. I’ve written before about the level of distraction I have experienced navigating these systems and, while they are right up to the minute, there are many times when simple functions - such as wing mirror adjustment - need to be more safely and quickly accessed. As well as climate control if your windscreen fogs up.

Some manufacturers, like VW, have already reacted to customer feedback and have begun re-introducing buttons for simple and distraction-free driving. In the meantime, it is a matter of concern.

Another example of tech advancement is the 'sentry' mode function that watches whether you are showing any signs of drowsiness when driving, but can also monitor, with all-round external cameras, your car when parked.

Bad news for those who know they may have bumped your car in a supermarket car park but choose to drive away with averted eyes rather than leave a note on your car to fess up!

The G6 also has a long list of safety equipment such as lane centering, active lane assist, emergency braking, 12 cameras and virtually every other system you could imagine. All the tech is standard on both versions of the car.

It has already scored the maximum five stars in the EuroNCAP crash test programme too.

The interior could best be described as innovative rather than interesting. The big screen dominates everything. The space is very impressive though - I almost had to raise my voice from the back seat to speak to a colleague while driving.

The boot is also very generous, at 571 litres capacity so you won’t have to limit your load, and that capacity can extend to 1,374 litres with folded rear seats.

There’s a five year warranty on the car and the battery is guaranteed for eight years.

There is more to come from Xpeng, such as a hatchback coupe, a bigger SUV and an MPV. One suspects they’ll be here sooner rather than later, in line with the bullet train production schedule.