'Welcome to the benchmark of luxury': Chinese electric car brand is talking a big game ahead of entering the Australian market with its Tesla Model Y rival and aspirations to challenge even the Mercedes-Benz EQE

In the midst of a wave of car brands arriving in Australia from China, only one has shown up with a flying car as part of its line-up.

Xpeng doesn’t expect the X2 flying car to be its business case here, but it’s certainly a statement, and along with some fairly lofty goals it shows that the self-proclaimed 'luxury EV benchmark' manufacturer isn’t here to put socks on caterpillars.

At the brand’s local launch in Australia during the Electric SUV Expo in Melbourne, Jason Clarke, CEO of TrueEV (Xpeng’s local importer), gave CarsGuide a run-down of his hopes for the market newcomer.

The Xpeng G6 will spearhead the brand's entry into Australia with the likes of the Tesla Model Y in its sights. In fact, Clarke told CarsGuide the G6 will be priced below $60,000 and noted that the reason should be obvious.

“We have the G6 mid-size SUV which goes on sale in Q4 this year,” Clarke told media before the beginning of the Expo.

“We also have the G9 large SUV, but people like to think it's the Range Rover of smart EVs — I’d like to get myself into one of those anytime soon. We expect to have that in 2025. 

“Then we have the P7 sports sedan. Very, very nice vehicle, scissor doors very, very desirable. 

“And then, of course, personal favourite for my young family, is the X9 - absolute luxury 7-seater MPV.”

Clarke told CarsGuide the G6 mid-size SUV, G9 large SUV and X9 people-mover are all but locked-in, while the P7 sedan’s viability for Australia will come down to demand.

But Clarke also addressed the Xpeng stand’s centrepiece for the EV SUV Expo, a giant drone-looking two-seater aircraft called the X2, referred to by the brand as a flying car despite its lack of wheels.

“We have, bringing some promotion to the brand, the X2 flying car. Now, people say ‘what's the relevance of the X2 flying car? Is it just a gimmick?’ Well, no. This showcases Xpeng’s brand — about low altitude mobility, about the future of mobility — and what we have with the X2 is the relevance that it is registrable in Dubai.

“So it is being flown under registration and licence and it is being used and tested for taxi flights in China. I don’t think you’re going to be doing the school pick-up and drop-off anytime soon in Melbourne, as much as you want to, but you can see the relevance there. Maybe for emergency services, maybe for rural applications, maybe in other remote locations or across airports.”

Flying cars aside, Clarke said the brand wanted to make an impactful statement that there’s tech and manufacturing power behind the Xpeng brand that might surprise Australians — the brand was after all started by He Xiaopeng (the brand name a contraction of his name), who made his fortune in tech and has spent the last decade building up Xpeng.

“What’s quite obvious is the design, build, the quality, everything that's involved here is state-of-the-art,” Clarke said.

“What we hope to do at Xpeng is to have Australia's number one luxury EV brand.”

When asked what he considers the benchmark of luxury in the Australian market, Clarke didn’t hold back. 

“As of today, us. So thank you, and welcome to the benchmark of luxury. That sounds facetious, but I really do think that Xpeng is the benchmark for luxury.”

“Last week, from what people see, Tesla is seen as the upper-most quality. But you’ve got the European brands like Mercedes-Benz and others as well, but with our focus on the new imports coming in, that’s what I think.”

But does that mean Xpeng’s goal is to top Tesla in the EV sales game? Clarke spoke one-on-one with CarsGuide later to clarify and dive further into his expectations for the brand in Australia. 

“Of course I would like to, I think I said we'd like to be in the top five EV sellers in Australia. So that would mean that we probably are not outselling Tesla or BYD. But we'd be thereabouts in that conversation. Yeah, that for us is success. 

“But we are segmenting into luxury because of the quality of what we do have. And with Tesla — and this is my personal opinion — I was such a fan, still am, of the Model S and Model X, and the 3 in the Y aren't those cars.

“Once you sit in these, if you test drive these [Xpeng cars], I think you'll have your own opinion, but you'll start to see — and consumers will start to see — the difference in quality and what they have, but there just hasn't been that choice.”

Clarke wouldn’t be drawn on his exact goals, but said he expected to sell “thousands” of units in the year or so after the brand’s launch.