Output at Magna in Graz, where XPENG’s European cars are assembled, “is not even sufficient” for XPENG’s needs, vice president Yeqing Zheng told Reuters at the Paris Motor Show on 12 October. The same day, chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng put a figure on the ambition for Bloomberg: 500,000 cars sold a year in Europe by 2030.
The second production line
XPENG expects to grow by “high double digits” in Europe, and the extra capacity is to come in partnership with a local carmaker, either by building a new plant or by operating an existing one. The line is to build mid-level cars at a lower cost than in Austria and be running by the time the EU’s local-content rules take effect. The decision will come “within months”.
XPENG is building a local supply chain, and finding a European battery supplier that can deliver cells with the energy density and charging capability the cars require will be “challenging”.
Zheng named no partner, country, plant, volume or date.
Two lines would match XPENG’s two internal product lines after September’s merger: D with the Mona series, which the L03 belongs to in China, and G with the other models, the ones Graz builds today (the story on the product lines). The parallel is ours, not XPENG’s.
The target for 2030
He Xiaopeng told Bloomberg that production capacity is XPENG’s most critical bottleneck in Europe. The company is talking to Magna about more capacity in Graz and is at the same time exploring production elsewhere in Europe. The European target is half of about one million cars sold a year by 2030; earlier this year he spoke of one million outside China, but Europe’s half is the same. Bloomberg notes that the figure is more than Ford and Opel each sold in Europe in 2025.
Graz today
Magna won the contract in September 2025, and the G6 and G9 have come off the line since the third quarter of that year. The P7+ followed on 7 April 2026, and on 7 October the first European G9L completed its production trial. “Four models into production in Europe within one year”, XPENG summed up in its release after the Paris Automotive Summit of 13 October. How much of the plant XPENG has at its disposal, neither Magna nor XPENG has said.
The growth shows in the deliveries. In September XPENG delivered 10,055 cars outside China, the first month above 10,000, and 59,479 in the first nine months of the year, twice as many as a year earlier and 20.9 percent of the 284,367 cars in total. The compilation is CnEVPost’s of 12 October, from XPENG’s and CPCA’s figures.
The EU rules and the timetable
Zheng is referring to the Commission’s proposal for an Industrial Accelerator Act of 4 March 2026. The proposal ties European-content requirements to public procurement and public support and has specific provisions for electric cars and their components. The 70 percent local content mentioned in the debate comes from drafts and industry associations, not from adopted law, and there is no date for entry into force. According to Reuters, the negotiations were still under way on 14 October.
The background is the countervailing duty on China-built electric cars from October 2024, 20.7 percent for the cooperating producers on top of the ordinary 10 percent customs duty. It is one of the reasons Chinese brands assemble cars in Europe.
An open question
The European G9L is sold with two Turing chips for driver assistance; the Danish configurator, checked on 12 and 15 October, lists no third chip for the cabin AI. Whether that is down to chip supply or a strategic choice to put the cabin AI in the cloud, XPENG has not said, and no source settles it. Which chips sit in which model is in the assistance-hardware article.
What Graz builds is on the G9L page under Built in Graz and in the story on the production trial; the company page gathers XPENG’s European footprint.
Images: XPENG
Sources
XPENG, 7 October 2026: First G9L production trial at Magna in Graz; production since Q3 2025
European Commission, 4 March 2026: Proposal for an Industrial Accelerator Act, COM(2026)100
Reuters, 14 October 2026: The Made in Europe negotiations, Zheng on the timetable, Changan's targets