XPeng‘s L03 SUV delivered more than 20,000 vehicles in October, the model’s first month above that level and what the company described as its third straight monthly increase, three months after its global debut in Munich.
The company announced the figure in a Weibo post on Monday, indicating that the SUV accounted for at least 39.8% of the record 50,237 vehicles XPeng delivered across all models in October, the company’s first month above 50,000.
The L03 delivered more than 14,000 vehicles in September, XPeng said on October 2, or at least 33.9% of the 41,256 vehicles the company delivered that month. As XPeng gave only minimum figures for both months, the size of October’s increase cannot be calculated.
In August, its first full month on sale, the L03 became XPeng’s best-selling model with 8,424 units, or about 21.5% of the 39,107 vehicles the company delivered that month.
The model’s share of XPeng’s deliveries has nearly doubled in two months.
CPCA’s model data for October are due next week.
The ramp-up follows a difficult start. Jiang Wen, Head of R&D for the Mona series, apologized in August to customers who had locked in orders and were waiting for their cars, saying supplies of high-end chips had fluctuated because of global AI demand.
“Supply chain problems have been gradually overcome,” Jiang said at the time. He said production had moved to two full shifts, that “capacity efficiency nearly doubled in August,” and that XPeng expected to run at full capacity in September and October.
He Xiaopeng referred to the same episode at the October 29 launch of the Mona L05, the second SUV in the series. “Because deliveries couldn’t keep up, we got scolded badly,” he said.
Strong Orders, Slow Start
XPeng launched the L03 on July 16 at an event in Munich, which EV attended at the brand’s invitation, unveiling the model for China and overseas markets at the same time.
The company said it received more than 20,000 firm orders within seven minutes of the China launch and 46,859 within the first hour.
He handed over the first cars to Chinese customers on July 22, and XPeng said at the time that its factory was running overtime to accelerate nationwide deliveries from August.
In China, the L03 is priced from 123,800 yuan ($18,600) to 156,800 yuan ($23,600), with six battery-electric and three extended-range versions. The fully electric versions are rated at up to 625 kilometers (388 miles) on China’s CLTC test cycle, while the extended-range models have a combined range of up to 1,330 kilometers (827 miles).
Higher trims carry XPeng’s in-house Turing AI chips, with two chips and 1,500 TOPS of computing power in the top Ultra SE versions.
More than half of L03 buyers are young, XPeng said in October, without giving an age threshold. About 70% of buyers live in China’s first-tier, new first-tier and second-tier cities, and more than 90% of orders were for the higher Max or Ultra SE trims, the company said.
The Mona lineup, which began with the M03 sedan, has delivered more than 360,000 vehicles in about two years.
Europe
The L03 is XPeng’s main volume push in Europe. Prices there start at €35,600 ($39,800) for the Standard Range model and rise to €46,600 ($52,000) for the all-wheel-drive Performance Ultra, electrive reported, with the Long Range version rated at 520 kilometers (323 miles) on the WLTP cycle.
He said on October 11 in Paris that the L03 had drawn more than 12,000 orders in Europe in about three months, before display cars had reached local dealers.
XPeng delivered the first European L03 to a customer in Paris on October 13, with He handing over the keys, the company said on Weibo.
The model is planned for 64 overseas markets, according to XPeng.
He told analysts on the company’s second-quarter earnings call in August that overseas deliveries of the L03 would begin in the fourth quarter, helping “drive firm-wide quarterly overseas deliveries to exceed 40,000 units.” XPeng delivered a record 13,326 vehicles overseas in October.
Next in Line
XPeng is now repeating the approach with the Mona L05, a larger five-seat SUV that it opened for pre-sales in mid-October and launched in China on October 29 at a limited-time price from 139,800 yuan ($21,000).
XPeng said 5,000 L05 units available for near-term delivery sold out within three minutes of the launch, with nationwide deliveries starting on November 1. The company had already begun shipping the L05 overseas on October 26.
The China Passenger Car Association is expected to publish model-level retail data for October next week.
