BYD Atto 2 vs Xpeng G6

What's the difference?

The BYD Atto 2 isn't just the cheapest electric SUV in Australia, it's also one that doesn't feel all that cheap, which is a hell of a magic trick. If it's easy, comfortable city motoring you're after, the Atto 2 delivers in spades. But if your blood type is high octane, there are better driving EVs out there.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with meals provided.

Note: The author, Andrew Chesterton, is a co-owner of Smart As Media, a content agency and media distribution service with a number automotive brands among its clients. When producing content for CarsGuide, he does so in accordance with the CarsGuide Editorial Guidelines and Code of Ethics, and the views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.

You never know quite what to expect when you jump into the first model from a brand-new brand, but the XPeng G6 was a pleasant surprise. And at this price, with these features, it should really give Tesla Model Y shoppers something to think about.

I think it’s a sharp-looking thing, this Atto 2. Kudos to BYD for not making the design look like it’s trying too hard, or like the Atto 2 is something it isn’t. It’s just smooth, sensible small SUV with styling that looks like it will age gracefully.

I like the chunky black moulding which makes it look a bit tougher than it is, plus the LED DRLs and swept back (and spoiler-equipped) roofline add a bit of visual drama.

Inside, BYD has made two pretty good choices. The first is that the cabin feels toned down from the one in the Atto 3 (which is all chunky wheel-style controls and vents). 

This one feels far more sedate and conventional in its design, which I think is a win.

The other good decision is to equip the Atto 2 with soft plastics, rather than hard scratchy ones, in places like the door panels. In some cheaper cars, you feel your elbows constantly rubbing against cheap-feeling plastics, but that’s not the case here.

Too much stuff is still controlled through that central screen, and BYD has an awkward way of shortcutting functions. They call it a three-finger swipe, meaning that if you run three fingers across the screen horizontally you can adjust the climate-control’s fan speed, while swiping horizontally adjusts temp, but it feels like a weird movement.

There’s more than a little Tesla Model Y in the XPeng’s exterior design, with the two sharing the same kind of soft-edged, swept-back SUV styling. 

It helps make the XPeng look familiar and inoffensive, and while I wouldn’t go so far as to call it ground-breaking, I think it has enough exterior flourishes to break up the body work, and I don’t mind the way it looks, and the way it sits on those big alloys.

Inside, it’s a spacious and pretty stylish space. This giant screen is super responsive, and is easy enough to navigate, with the key functions (like climate) glued to the bottom of the screen so you don't have to paw through menus to access them. The idea begins to fail when you have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto active, though, as you have to revert back to the car's home screen to access anything.

The XPeng uses its steering wheel controls to access air-con fan and temp controls as a kind of shortcut, but confusingly they change to distance adjustment when you’ve got the cruise control on. An easier, and much better solution would be to bring back buttons.

I also don't love the stalk-style gear selector, which doubles as a cruise control activator, and, with a double pull, as your autonomous helper. It just feels super old-school in a vehicle this modern.

What is a massive win though is the driver screen. Tesla fans can scream minimalist aesthetics all they want, but the drive experience is simply better when you can see your speed and other key info right in front of you.

The Atto 2 measures 4310mm in length, 1830mm in width and 1675mm in height and it rides on a 2620mm wheelbase. It also sits on BYD’s fully-flat EV platform, which helps to maximise space in the back seat.

I’m 175cm tall and could get comfortable behind my own driving position, with enough knee and headroom to ensure I didn’t feel cramped.

There are two ISOFIX attachment points, one in each window seat in the back as well as USB-A and -C connection points.

Boot space is a not cavernous, but also not tiny, 380L with the rear seats in place, growing to 1320L with the rear pews folded flat. Both models also offer a V2L (Vehicle to Load) connection, too, so you can power up household devices.

At 4753mm in length, 1920mm in width and 1650mm in height, the XPeng fits into the fast-growing mid-size electric SUV space. 

And it ticks a lot of practicality boxes, like with its 571-litre boot, swelling to 1374 litres with the seats folded. But its real party trick is in the back seat, where the space is properly massive. 

I have another mid-size SUV, powered by a petrol engine, at the moment and our baby seat presses against the back of the passenger seat. In this it feels like I could fly a kite in the space between them.

It’s the same for passengers, too. Honestly, the real estate on offer is massive, and that includes for the middle-seat rear passenger, where the lack of a bulky tunnel eating into legroom means adults can sit there comfortably.

There's a pull-down divider separating the back seat that's also home to two cupholders, and there are twin USB connections, as well as air vents (though no temp controls).

There's no spare tyre, though, which means fiddling with the repair kit should you get puncture, or waiting for roadside assist.

Okay, first things first – what the hell is XPeng? It's been around for about 10 years in China, but only made its way to Australia last year. It was founded by some former car company execs and tech tycoons — one of whom is telecommunications billionaire He Xiaopeng, which is where that name comes from.

Anyway, this one is the XPeng G6, which launched in Australia with two trims – the Standard Range, which is $54,800, before on-road costs, and the one we’ve tested, the Long Range, which is $59,800. The difference is in the battery size, of course, but we’ll get to that in a minute. 

As of now, the new Model Y can be ordered for $63,400 for the Standard Range or $73,400 for the Long Range, which makes the XPeng a whole heap cheaper.

Outside, you get LED lighting all around (including the DRLs), a massive glass roof, auto door handles, an auto-opening boot, a V2L connection, which allows you to use your XPeng’s battery to power whatever you plug in and big 20-inch wheels wrapped in Michelin rubber.

You also get some cool high-tech features, accessed through the XPeng app, like the ability to drive your car out of tight parking spots remotely.

Inside, there are synthetic-leather seats that are heated, a heated steering wheel, dual-zone climate, a massive 18-speaker sound system (with speakers in the headrest), wireless charging and two very handy screens — a responsive 15-inch central screen with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, and a 10.2-inch digital dashboard.

There’s also more safety stuff than you can shake a crash test at, but we’ll come back to that in a second.

Both Atto 2 models share the same powertrain - a front-mounted electric motor producing 130kW/290Nm which is sent to the front tyres. It feels fairly sedate, even under flat-footed acceleration, though BYD reckons you can knock off the sprint to 100km/h in 7.9 seconds.

This G6 is a rear-wheel drive affair, with a single electric motor housed at the rear axle. It produces 190kW and 440Nm in Standard Range form or 210kW/440Nm in Long Range guise, which don’t sound like massive numbers — especially given the 2.0-tonne-plus weight of this XPeng – but it gets up and moving just fine.

The 100km/h sprint is a claimed 6.2 seconds, while the top speed is 200km/h.

Both models also share the same battery, a 51.1kWh LFP unit, which should unlock a WLTP driving range of 345km. AC charging is pegged at 7.0kW, so a good match for a standard home wallbox, while DC fast charging is 82kW. Using the latter, BYD says you should go from 10 to 80 per cent charged in 38 minutes.

The Long Range version of the G6 nabs a 87.5kWh battery (compared to 66kWh in the Standard Range), unlocking a claimed driving range of 570km. 

The official power use figure is 17.5kWh/100km, but I did a fair bit of driving on all sorts of roads and my number was more like 14kWh.

When it does come time to charge, the G6 is set up for 280kW DC fast charging which means, should you find the right fast charger, a 10-80 per cent charge should arrive in just 20 minutes. Home charging will take a lot longer, of course – we’re talking overnight plugged into a regular wallbox.

Your drive experience in the Atto 2 very much depends on what you ask of it.

Or to put it another way, the first half of my drive route was a breezy run through the city and suburbs, then onto the freeway, before arriving at our destination. 

It was probably 60 kays or so, and across it all the Atto 2 felt quiet and comfortable, with enough power at its disposal to easily get up to speed and stay there. 

In the second half, though, I hunted down some twisting roads and cracks started to appear. The ride is pretty solid and there isn't huge amounts of body roll during more enthusiastic cornering. 

But the steering is vague and there's plenty of slack – you can turn the wheel a fair bit without eliciting much response from the tyres.

Interestingly, turning the wheel with a bit of aggression also produced a weird sound up front, like you could hear the mechanicals shifting the tyres.

The tyres make a difference, too, with the Premium's more expensive Hankook rubber far happier to hang on without squealing than the Dynamic's Westlake tyres. 

But context is key here. The Atto 2 is an accessible, affordable city-focused EV, and it performs those duties admirably. But if you're sold on a car-driver connection, there isn't much of that on offer here.

How much you love your time behind the wheel of the XPeng G6 comes down to what you're looking for from your mid-size electric SUV.

Speed and sportiness? There's not much of either. But it does serve up tons of space and technology, surprising refinement and a calm and cosseting ride.

And I think you can mount a pretty solid argument that all of that is pretty important in a mid-size SUV, more so than the ability to carve corners.

I did some solid driving in the G6, including a round trip from Sydney to the start of the NSW South Coast, taking in every road type and surface imaginable, and XPeng proved super comfy, pretty quiet and very, very easy the entire time.

Sure, it's not one of those EVs that makes the scenery blur when you put your foot down. Its outputs and acceleration are a bit more user-friendly than that. But it also doesn't ever feel underpowered, with the plenty of poke away from the lights and even some in reserve for freeway overtakes at 110km/h.

The steering, even in its 'Dynamic' mode, is fairly soft, and you can never magic away the weight of the XPeng in corners, where that compliant suspension does allow for some roll, but it also doesn't feel entirely disconnected from the road below in that disconcerting way some vehicles can.

So, if comfort is mission critical in your SUV space, the XPeng delivers.

Oh, and I know that big screens aren't that uncommon these days, but the multimedia unit in the XPeng is a treat. It's super fast, even when scrolling across maps, and it's relatively user friendly, too.

The XPeng G6 wears a maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating from assessment in 2024, owing mostly to a flood of active safety features that arrive as standard, including AEB (with pedestrian, backover, cyclist, motorcycle and crossing detection), lane departure warning, lane keep assist, speed sign recognition, driver monitoring and more.

But it could also lay claim to a unique record – the first Chinese EV in which the safety systems don't make you want to make you pull your hair out with their incessant chiming and bonging.

Only on the freeway, where an intermittent chiming incorrectly warned me I was leaving my lane, were the safety systems at all overzealous. Otherwise, they were entirely liveable.

If a crash is unavoidable, the airbag count runs to seven (dual front, front side, side curtain and front centre) and multi-collision brake is standard, to minimise the chances of a secondary crash following an initial impact.

BYD’s warranty is an okay six years but just 150,000km, which is underwhelming compared to the best in the business. The battery is covered for eight years or 160,000km.

BYD vehicles typically have 12 month, 20,000km service intervals with capped price servicing, but the details are yet to be confirmed for the Atto 2.

I'm scoring the regular warranty offering here, which is five years or 120,000km, with the battery covered for eight years or 160,000km. Keep an eye out for deals, though. At the time of writing XPeng was offering a 10-year warranty on both, for example.

Service intervals are 12 months or 20,000km. The cheapest individual service is $238, but over five years the total cost is $2064, averaging out to more like $410 per year.