XPENG marked its tenth anniversary on 28 August 2024 and launched the Mona M03 the same evening, an electric hatchback coupé in three versions between RMB 119,800 and 155,800, with deliveries from September 2024.
The car is 4,780 mm long on a 2,815 mm wheelbase with a 621-litre boot. Drag is 0.194. There are two levels of driver assistance, M03 and M03 Max, and more than 20 pieces of smart hardware are standard across the range. The M03 Max had XNGP on all public roads in China, with delivery planned after Chinese New Year 2025; XPENG calls it the industry’s only city driving below RMB 200,000.
Three of the figures are XPENG’s own. The boot the company calls the largest in its class. The drag figure of 0.194 it calls the world’s best among mass-produced electric hatchbacks. And the powered tailgate is, by XPENG’s account, the only one in its class as standard.
The M03 was the first model in the Mona series. XPENG announced the sub-brand in April 2024 as Mona, Made of New AI, and called the M03 the series’ first model. The series has grown since, and in China the L03 belongs to it too. The Mona name is not used in Europe, where the car is sold as the XPENG L03 - and the M03 and the L03 are two different models. The XPENG L03 page has that car.
The chip
Five days earlier, on 23 August 2024, the Turing chip was taped out. It has 40 cores, is named after Alan Mathison Turing, and XPENG calls it the world’s first 40-core chip built for AI models. The architecture is domain-specific and built for neural networks, and XPENG puts its performance at three times existing chips. AI Day 2024 ten weeks later followed the chip up.
The promise that came with it: an L3+ experience on L2 hardware at an L2 price, within 18 months.
The cameras
AI Hawkeye is the camera-only solution, built on LOFIC with two 8-megapixel cameras front and rear. XPENG calls the LOFIC architecture a world first for backlight perception. It was to debut on the P7+ in the fourth quarter of 2024. XPENG said the software had been made compatible with both sensor solutions to give a consistent driver-assistance experience. Two years later Turing sat behind the agent XPENG showed off.
The decade ahead
He Xiaopeng gave three predictions for the next decade, to around 2034. That only seven mainstream Chinese car brands will remain. That XPENG will reach a million AI-powered cars a year. And that half of its sales will come from markets outside China.
The same evening XPENG announced pre-sales of the modular flying car in the fourth quarter of 2024 and trailed the second-generation humanoid robot for Tech Day.
Images: XPENG
Sources
XPENG: the Mona M03 launched at the tenth anniversary gala · 28 August 2024
XPENG: the MONA sub-brand announced at Beijing Auto Show · 25 April 2024