Tesla News

There’s a new number-one seller in town. The Ford Ranger has run down the Toyota RAV4 at the halfway point of the yearly sales race.

Maybe it’s the Ferrari SUV looks or the competitive pricing, but whatever it is Chinese car manufacturer Xiaomi's YU7 electric SUV is selling faster than it’s possible for the company to make, with 240,000 locked-in orders being placed in China within 18 hours after its launch.With a starting price of about A$54,000, the five-metre long five-seater YU7 is a rival to Tesla's Model Y, BYD Sealion 7, Zeekr’s 7X and BYD’s upcoming Tang L. And its popularity should have those carmaking behemoths shaking in their boots.The huge number of orders for the YU7 means Xiaomi's production capacity has been overwhelmed and it will take until early 2027 for it to be able to produce those 240,000 locked-in orders.Xiaomi currently only has one plant located in Beijing with an annual capacity of 150,000 units.  A second plant is under construction and is expected to be operational this month with an annual capacity of 150,000 units as well.In China the YU7 is offered in three grades. The range kicks off with the Standard grade, featuring a single motor powering the rear wheels and producing 235W and 528Nm. Stepping up to the Pro grade brings all-wheel drive and two motors with a combined output of 365kW and 690Nm. Both use a 96.3kWh LFP battery.  Top-of-the-range Max is also all-wheel drive and its motors produce a whopping 508kW and 866Nm. That's enough grunt to throw this SUV from 0 to 100km/h in 3.2 seconds. A bigger 101kWh NCM battery is in the Max.The YU7 is Xiaomi's second vehicle to come to market following the SU7 saloon’s arrival in May, 2024. A rival to Tesla's Model 3 the SU7 has also seen outstanding sales numbers with more than 258,000 sold since its launch. Xiaomi is better known as an electronics maker producing phones especially. While it hasn't been confirmed if the company will come to Australia, given the success of rival Chinese companies like BYD, Geely and MG it's likely the company will bring its products here at some point. 

The boss of tech giant Xiaomi, Lei Jun, has confirmed launch timing of the company’s much-anticipated first SUV model, the YU7. Arriving before the end of June, the YU7 joins the SU7 which has shot to explosive popularity in China as an aspirational and locally-produced electric sports sedan. For context, the SU7 secured nearly 90,000 pre-orders when it went on sale in March of 2024.

Tesla in Australia has lifted the lid on its model plans, and its wish list, for our market, with the brand touching on everything from the long-rumoured Tesla Model 2 or cheaper EV products to the seven-seat Model Y.

Chinese cars aren’t just about being the budget option anymore, and their ability to act fast, take risks and disregard the status quo is an existential threat to some of the world’s biggest manufacturers in Australia.I’ve increasingly had these thoughts as I’ve been driving ambitious new Chinese cars week-to-week against new offerings from their more established European, Japanese, and Korean rivals.It’s not as though these new offerings aren’t riddled with issues, some of them mundane and others extremely frustrating as you can read about in our recent reviews of cars like the Leapmotor C10, Geely EX-5, and Jaecoo J8. But outside the pricing and sheer speed to market, it’s the complete lack of fear to try something new which is making them stand out even in the most congested market segments.My favourite recent examples include Zeekr’s wild 009 performance people mover and the smaller but absurdly modular Mix, as well as the 7X electric mid-size SUV.There’s XPeng’s range of cars, from the surprisingly tidy G6, which has already arrived in Australia, alongside the soon-to-arrive G9 large SUV and Mona M03 sedan.Most recently there’s the wild GWM Tank 700, a $100k-plus twin-turbo V6 plug-in hybrid off-road monster clearly designed to rival some of the biggest names in the industry like G-Wagen, Defender and LandCruiser.That’s not to mention BYD’s mould-breaking Shark 6 plug-in hybrid ute, which has single-handedly upended the predominantly diesel segment and suddenly made heroes of the post-Falcon and Commodore era like the HiLux and D-Max look relatively antiquated.These new Chinese options have a lot in common. They have ambitious futuristic designs, feature-laden cabins with clever software features (albeit not all of them good) and a complete disregard for established industry norms.Performance people mover? Any other manufacturer would say a resounding ‘no’ to that, but Zeekr and XPeng both reckon they can simply create the hype for one out of thin air.Even just the concept of people movers in general. Toyota’s local division constantly dismisses the idea of bringing its luxurious Alphard to our market, despite the fact that it consistently ranks as Australia’s most popular grey import and sold in numbers orders of magnitude greater than the now-discontinued and diesel-only Granvia, which the brand offered as an also-ran alternative thanks to its parts commonality with the HiAce.Yet soon Australia will be again flooded with people mover offerings from the likes of BYD’s Denza brand as well as Xpeng and Zeekr, an existential threat to the Kia Carnival, which has remained largely unchallenged for the last few years.Even the entire concept of a Chinese semi-luxury brand like Jaecoo or Zeekr would have been scoffed at a handful of years ago, yet here they are, and not with one or two models, but fully-fledged line-ups.You can go even more granular than that. Recently I had a new Suzuki Swift ‘hybrid’ as a long-termer. It’s a sweet little car and technically ticks a lot of boxes for the intended buyer. The issue? It goes into battle against the new MG3.There’s a few problems with this. Firstly, the Suzuki feels like a facelift of the previous car, rather than a new-generation as claimed, and secondly, it’s not a ‘real hybrid’ in the sense that there’s no electric motor large enough to independently drive the wheels.In comparison, the MG launches with a clean-sheet, screen-centric interior (for better or worse), and an interesting dedicated hybrid transmission system with plenty of electric driving potential. Again, the MG is far from perfect, but it’s the relative ambition on show which could make or break a sale.Another example I drove recently was the Audi Q6 e-tron. It’s a great luxury mid-size electric SUV. The problem is, Volkswagen Group made a big song and dance about its brand-new PPE platform as though it was going to revolutionize the space, and the problem is the end product is just good when it needs to be stellar.In comparison, the Zeekr 7X I drove at the end of 2024 in China completely outgunned my expectations. It’s a similar offering; a ground-up new mid-size luxury electric SUV, but it brings a surprisingly plush interior (in some aspects, nicer than the Audi), with very clever software features, a coherent and innovative design and solid motor and battery specs.Zeekr was so confident we’d be impressed by it, they brought a current BMW X5 for us to test it against, and, to put it simply, the 7X felt much more a product of today. Plus it looks set to cost closer to $75k than the $100k of the base Q6.Now I'll stop at this point to add the caveat that just because these new offerings are ambitious - whether it's their design, price, market segment, or features - they're not always objectively better vehicles.The point is: at both ends of the price spectrum now, Chinese brands are putting the pressure on and tempting buyers away at a time where traditional brands can't afford to lose their audience.You don’t even need to take my word for it. It’s clear as day in the latest VFACTs figures for new car registrations in Australia.At the low end of the market, the squeeze is undeniable. The once-dominating Suzuki is down 19.8 per cent this year as it faces particular pressure from both MG and Chery, and cult hero SsangYong from Korea is taking a big hit as GWM and JAC muscle in on the territory of its humble Musso ute, the brand’s sales also dropping 27.6 per cent year-on-year.Even Mitsubishi is struggling to keep up, its affordable ASX now discontinued and new competition particularly fierce in the same segments as its core Triton ute and Outlander mid-sizer.BYD’s surge to the front of the EV charts has the once-dominant Tesla on the ropes for the first time, and it’s clear that some niche parts of the market are struggling to deal with the new car landscape, with Volvo down 21 per cent year-on-year and Jeep down 20.8 per cent.Granted it’s hard to attribute new Chinese players purely to these issues, with some ageing product no doubt to blame, but it’s worth pondering whether the lost volume will ever be recovered with so much competition tempting buyers away.Some traditional players are fairing better than others. Toyota is stable thanks to a steady stream of refreshed versions of its popular range of hybrids (although a question mark hangs above its ageing HiLux), while Kia and Hyundai take a different path, leaning into offering a diverse range of hybrids and electric cars with their own ambitious design allure.None of this will last. Despite a new range of ambitious products, even the once trailblazing MG is feeling a bit of heat, down 12.7 per cent this year as it tries to outgrow its cheap and cheerful phase, the mantle of which has been taken up by Chery.No doubt the same fate could await its contemporaries, as even more Chinese brands have designs on the Australian market - widely seen as a microcosm of other markets like the US and Europe - a perfect testbed for global expansion plans.Eventually the dust will settle, but how many automakers - new or old - will survive an increasingly intense race to 2030 seems impossible to tell.

The Tesla Cybertruck has cleared a major hurdle for its Australian launch, with the brand in Australia having been briefed on the changes required for the unique electric ute to be approved for sale.

Euro NCAP’s Technical Manager of Assisted Driving Systems, Adriano Palao, has criticised Tesla’s autopilot software, going so far as to say the suite is “misleading consumers about the system’s capabilities”.The fresh retort of Tesla’s autonomous driving technology comes as Euro NCAP detailed the differences in a variety of similar systems on the market, noting “some systems are more user-centric and safe than others”.Performance testing for the Model S - which is no longer sold in Australia - had the safety body determining that it performed poorly awarding it just 30 per cent for its Assistance Competence score.The Assistance Competence score ranks autonomous features for their performance, clarity of information, how they communicate capability limitations, driver monitoring, and driver collaboration. It is distinguished from the Safety Backup score, which ranks how the systems avoid a collision in a variety of situations, as well as when a sensor is blocked or the driver is unresponsive.The body noted it was jarring the Model S scored an Excellent 94 per cent for its Safety Backup score, but just 30 per cent for Assistance Competence.Euro NCAP said not only does Tesla name the system Autopilot and suggest full automation in its promotional material, but also noted the system’s steering input was resistant to driver attempts to override it, and upon doing so, the entire system automatically disengages, “limiting its usefulness”.The body also noted issues with the centrally-mounted touchscreen, in that the driver had to take their eyes off the road to view alerts.Euro NCAP ultimately said: “Tesla is misleading consumers about their autopilot system’s capabilities simply through its name and marketing, which could have potential safety implications.”Tesla was not the only company marketed on its safety credentials who came under fire in the latest round of autonomous system testing. Even Volvo’s new EX30 crossover was in the firing line, with the safety body earmarking similar concerns about its autonomous driving tech.The EX30 performed better than the Tesla in the Assistance Competence score, landing at 62 per cent, although was marked down for similar reasons to the Model S, it recorded a score less than the Tesla for its Safety Backup, at 72 per cent.Both cars, alongside the MG ZS, were awarded an overall Moderate rating for their active safety suites. Other cars considered in the round of testing included the Kia EV3, Porsche Macan, and Toyota bZ4X, all of which received a Very Good overall score, while the Mazda CX-80 and Xpeng G9 recorded a Good overall rating.Euro NCAP’s latest round of autonomous driving feature testing comes as the technology proliferates across a much wider spectrum of the market. Many brands now spruik some level of autonomous driving through an advanced cruise control suite, although as Euro NCAP notes, not all of these systems are created equal, and just ticking feature boxes does not always result in a safer system.In addition to more thorough testing of autonomous driving systems, Euro NCAP will also include standards for automakers to include physical buttons and dials from 2026, labelling the overuse of touchscreens an “industry-wide problem, raising the risk of distraction crashes”.Euro NCAP said the new protocols will encourage manufacturers to use separate, physical controls for basic functions in an intuitive manner, limiting eyes off-road time and therefore promoting safer driving.Under the new protocols, cars will be marked down by not including physical switches for indicators, hazard lights, the horn, operating windscreen wipers, and activating the SOS function.

Australian new-car sales were resilient in May despite economic headwinds.

Musk's erratic communications surrounding low-cost models caused confusion within Tesla and with investors according to a new report.

BYD is planning to roll out up to 15,000 of its recently-revealed megawatt chargers across China, revealing its blueprint for world EV domination.