September 2021 was XPENG’s first European motor show. The stand was virtual. IAA Mobility ran in Munich from 7 to 12 September, and XPENG turned up with six cars on a screen: the X2, P7, P7 Wing Edition, G3i, G3 and P5. The company’s keynote was on 8 September at 16:30 CET and ran for half an hour.
The release is datelined Munich, Germany. XPENG was not there itself.
One market behind the virtual stand
Norway was the only European country where XPENG sold cars at the time. The G3 launched there in April 2020 and reached its first customers in December that year. P7 pre-orders opened at the start of July 2021, with deliveries from October. XPENG wrote that the show marked the start of its arrival in Europe, and that more markets would follow over the coming months. On the day it was one country and two models.
The six cars on the screen
The X2 was the flying car, developed with HT Aero. It weighed 560 kg empty, had a maximum take-off weight of 760 kg and was built entirely in carbon fibre. XPENG expected it to reach 130 km/h and stay up for 35 minutes at 1,000 metres. Those were still expectations. It had not flown in public yet, and it was another year before it did, in Dubai.
The P7 ran XPILOT 2.5 and Xmart OS. The P5 was to get XPILOT 3.5 and was presented as the first mass-produced car with lidar in China. That qualifier is XPENG’s own, and it is worth noting.
One Chinese figure shows what XPENG was selling itself on at the time: as of 31 March 2021 the G3 had taken 15 over-the-air upgrades and 55 new functions.
Five years later
Today XPENG has an address of its own in Munich. The R&D centre there opened in September 2025, and the L03 had its world premiere in the same city in July 2026. At IFA in Berlin in September 2026 the whole range stood on the floor, flying car included. Five years separate the virtual stand from the physical one.
The markets page shows where XPENG sells today, and the XPENG company page has the background.
Images: XPENG
Sources
XPENG: full product range at IAA Mobility 2021 · 2 September 2021