The beginning of the year 2023 appears to be pretty difficult for the Chinese EV start-up XPeng, which in January noted a significant decrease in sales.
Last month, the company delivered to customers 5,218 electric cars, which is nearly 60 percent less than a year ago. It was also the fifth consecutive month of a year-over-year sales decline.
The overwhelming majority of XPeng sales are in China.
It’s difficult to say whether it’s a temporary issue or if XPeng faces deeper issues. In some of the previous reports, we heard that the brand will be one of the most affected by Tesla’s recent price cuts.
In a brief press release, XPeng explains that “deliveries for the month reflected seasonal slowdown during the Chinese New Year holiday period which began in mid-January,” but a year ago, sales almost reached 13,000 and there were holidays as well.
Anyway, XPeng reports that the all-new G9 flagship SUV noted 2,249 sales. This leaves 2,969 units for the remaining three models: G3/G3i, P5, P7 – the year-over-year sales drop in this group is very worrying at 77 percent year-over-year. That would explain the price cuts as high as 13 percent, announced in January.
Xpeng sales last month:
- G9: 2,249 (new)
- other (G3/G3i, P5, P7): 2,969 (down 77% year-over-year)
- Total: 5,218 (down 60% year-over-year)
For reference, in 12 months of 2022, XPeng’s electric car sales exceeded 120,000 units:
- Xpeng P7: N/A
- Xpeng P5: N/A
- Xpeng G3/G3i: N/A
- XPeng G9: 6,373 (new)
- Total: 120,757 (up 23% year-over-year)
As of December 31, 2022, cumulatively XPeng delivered 258,710 electric cars (the 200,000th car was delivered to customers in June).
To improve its results, XPeng intends to “soon” unveil the new version of the P7 electric sedan, which was the best-selling model in the company’s lineup (more than half of the total volume in 2021 and probably also in 2022, although we don’t have all the data).
Another engine of growth might be sales in Europe – two new electric models will be launched soon:
In the longer term, XPeng is expected to introduce new electric cars – an SUV (code name F30, according to the Chinese media) and an MPV (code name H93).
