On 16 March 2024, at a summit in Beijing, He Xiaopeng announced that XPENG would create a new brand in China for electric cars priced between RMB 100,000 and 150,000, which XPENG itself put at USD 15,000 to 23,000. The press release followed three days later. The name Mona came only with the M03 in August that year.
The case rests on market data from the China Passenger Car Association. That price band was about 34 percent of the Chinese market in 2023, up from about 31 percent in 2022, and more than eight million cars a year are sold in it. XPENG calls itself the first in China to bring advanced driver assistance to that price band.
The same day XPENG committed RMB 3.5 billion to R&D in 2024 and 4,000 new employees, and said large AI models would reach the cars in the second quarter. On 29 February 2024 the company had opened XNGP with no city or route restriction for experienced users, and it reckoned 83 percent of monthly active users were using XNGP for urban driving.
A Chinese focus
XPENG described the brand as an offer to young customers worldwide, but everything concrete in the release applies to China: the price band, the market analysis and the segment. There is no European plan, price or date in the text.
From the same family Europe later got the L03, which had its world premiere in Munich in July 2026, two and a half years after this release. It is a different car for a different market, and the European specifications and prices are on the XPENG L03 page.
2024 was the company’s tenth year, and XPENG framed the move as the start of a multi-brand phase. He Xiaopeng described the coming ten years as a decade of intelligence. The XPENG company page covers the rest.
Images: XPENG
Sources
XPENG: a new brand for A-class EVs between RMB 100,000 and 150,000 · 19 March 2024