Chinese premium electric vehicle (EV) maker Xpeng has priced its latest model competitively, pinning hopes on its new autonomous driving system to lure customers away from Tesla’s technology on the mainland.
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The Guangzhou-based EV maker set the presale price on the P7+ sedan at 209,800 yuan (US$29,500) as the Paris Motor Show got under way on Monday. Customers can receive a further 3,000 yuan discount if they agree to pay 99 yuan to reserve the car, according to Xpeng.
That makes the P7+ 10.8 per cent cheaper than Tesla’s Model 3, which starts at 231,900 yuan.
Orders for the Xpeng P7+ crossed 30,000 units within two hours of the presale announcement, Xpeng said in a post on Chinese microblogging platform Weibo on Monday.
The P7+ is the world’s first artificial intelligence (AI) car, Xpeng said at its unveiling on October 10. The car is equipped with the company’s proprietary Eagle Eye technology powered by Nvidia Orin X chips, which gives it greater accuracy in information collection. The company has made comprehensive use of AI to make the P7+ smarter in terms of autonomous driving, energy control and thermal management, according to He Xiaopeng, its founder and CEO.
“AI will be the foundation for developing EVs in the future,” said He. “AI will be widely used in intelligent cars and we aim to create a benchmark AI-powered vehicle for the industry.”