MONA M03 production is officially underway in China.
The XPeng founder, chairman, and CEO also echoed previous statements that the MONA M03 will start at RMB 200,000 ($27,900), making it a reasonably affordable new BEV model targeted at a younger demographic of buyers.
https://insideevs.com/news/730621/xpeng-mona-m03-review-tesla-model-3-rival/ With a starting price of under $19,000, Xpeng’s liftback sedan comes as standard with an SAE Level 2-capable advanced driver assistance system (ADAS), a front-mounted electric motor and a choice of two lithium-iron phosphate batteries made by BYD. The entry-level pack has a capacity of 51.8 kilowatt-hours and offers a claimed CLTC range of 320 miles, while the bigger 62-kWh pack boosts the range figure to 385 miles.
It’s worth noting that the CLTC testing procedure is one of the most lenient in the industry, so I’d take those range numbers with a grain of salt.
A Tesla Model 3, by comparison, has a starting price of over $30,000 in China, which is roughly 50% more than the Xpeng. That’s a lot of money, but I won’t jump to any conclusions–I’ll leave that to you, dear readers.
CLTC Testing.
Tesla Model 3 long range 443. But can one get a long range Tesla in China for $30K?
Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker Xpeng unveiled the first budget model under its new brand Mona on Tuesday, taking a step forward in making self-driving technology affordable to low and middle-income consumers on the mainland.
The M03 compact sedan, which is equipped with an advanced driving assistance system and has a range of at least 515km, is expected to mount a challenge to BYD, the world’s largest EV maker.
Xpeng currently builds intelligent EVs priced above 200,000 yuan. The CEO told an EV forum in Beijing in March that models under the Mona brand would be equipped with autonomous driving systems and priced between 100,000 yuan and 150,000 yuan.
At the end of July, Xpeng said it had expanded the use of its self-driving system to all cities in China in a bid to attract more buyers ahead of Tesla’s roll-out of its Full Self-Driving software, which has not yet been approved for use in the country but is expected to enter testing at the end of this year.
The move has made Xpeng the first mainland carmaker to make a semi-autonomous driving system available nationwide.
I hope some of these EVs make their way to the EU and eventually to the USA.