The Chinese manufacturer Xpeng has chosen to remove the LiDAR sensor from its new G9 SUV, which has just arrived in Europe. A strategy to reduce costs, and stay in the race against Tesla, which recently made a significant drop in prices. We explain to you what this changes in practice.
It’s been more than a month since the price war on the electric car was declared by Tesla and now it continues to have an impact on its main rivals. And in particular on the Chinese firm Xpeng, which is slowly starting to invade the European market. The manufacturer, founded in 2014 and based in Canton, has indeed made a significant price drop on its P5 and P7 as well as on its G3 SUV. But it might not stop there.
One less feature
Indeed, the Chinese firm, rival of BYD or even Nio will also tackle its brand new G9, a large electric SUV unveiled last September. A newcomer to the catalog located between the Tesla Model Y and Model X in terms of size and displaying a higher price than the first. But that could eventually change, all of the month, in the European market.
Indeed, the journalists of the site Automotive News inform us that the new G9 will finally do without its LiDAR sensor in the version that will be marketed on the Old Continent. Information confirmed by Martin Stegelmeier, responsible for product planning for Europe. He asserts, in fact, that this type of technology is extremely expensive.
And for good reason, this sensor, which is found on several top-of-the-range models such as the Mercedes EQS, Nio ET7, Lotus Eletre and other Volvo EX90s, is very expensive. This is why only vehicles with a premium or even luxury positioning have them. The brand’s spokesperson explains that ” we want to be at the forefront of ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) for European car manufacturers, but we also need to be competitively priced. With lidar, we wouldn’t be able to do that.“.
An easily understandable strategy, even if it means that the electric SUV will be less efficient in terms of autonomous driving on the Old Continent. Because for now, the use of a LiDAR is almost essential to reach level 3, authorized in Europe since last summer. For now, only Mercedes offers this technology here, while Tesla has equipped its models with FSD (full self-driving), still in beta testing in the United States. This then does without LiDAR and will eventually be based on cameras and radar with the new HW4 software.
Precisely, in China, the Xpeng G9 has the NGP function, a competitor of Tesla’s FSD, allowing autonomous driving in urban areas.
Towards a price drop?
Currently, the Xpeng P9 debuts from 57,990 euros in the Netherlands, although it has not yet started marketing in France. A price that could change with us, in particular because of the slightly different taxation. But in any case, it should not be eligible for the ecological bonus of 5,000 euros, only reserved for cars under 47,000 euros.
With the withdrawal of LiDAR, however, the brand may take advantage of lower production costs to reduce the price of your SUV. Unless she prefers to do like Ford and increase her profits instead. Either way, this G9 is still more expensive than the Tesla Model Y, which debuts as a reminder from 46,990 euros. Thus, he can for his part claim help from the government.
But the Chinese manufacturer is not the only one to want to reduce the price of its vehicles since the drop of up to 13,000 euros operated by Tesla. This is also the case for VinFast, Lucid, Ford as well as Nissan and Toyota in China. Other brands refuse to play this little game, such as Renault, which explains no leeway to reduce the price of its cars without hurting its profits. This should change with the adoption of smaller batteries.
As a reminder, the Xpeng G9 leaves the choice between 78 and 98 kWh packswhile the manufacturer claims that it is possible to go from 10 to 80% in just 15 minutes at a power of 300 kW thanks to an 800 volt architecture. Thus, it beats the Kia EV6, Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Hyundai Ioniq 6, which take 18 minutes to fill the battery up to 80%. The Chinese electric SUV also claims a range of between 570 and 702 according to the Chinese CLTC cycle, and up to 570 kilometers on the WLTP cycle.
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