Xpeng Debuts Tesla 3 Rival at Half the Price

Xpeng launches its entry-level Mona M03 in China, taking the Tesla 3 head-on but at half the price of its American-branded rival.

The car will be priced from just RMB 119,800 ($16,820), much lower than the roughly RMB 135,900 previously hinted at by Xpeng, reports Chinese auto website CnEVPost. It reports that consumer demand for the new model sees the automaker receive firm orders of more than 10,000 units in just 52 minutes.

Cost-cutting to achieve the M03’s bargain-basement sticker price include starting the model with a much smaller battery pack and ditching lidar sensor technology for ADAS features seen on the rest of the brand’s lineup.

The M03 is slightly longer and wider than the latest Chinese-built Tesla 3, and about the same height.

It is powered by a single motor and claims a 0-to-62 mph (100 km/h) sprint time of 7.8 seconds. It employs a 51.8-kWh battery pack for the 515-coded entry variant and 62.2 kWh for the other two 620 and 580 Max variants.

Both battery packs for the Mona M03 are based on lithium-iron- phosphate chemistry, and the supplier is FinDreams Battery, the battery division of BYD.

Improved aerodynamics feature large in the car’s design to get the most range from the smaller battery packs, with Xpeng claiming a coefficient of drag for the car at 0.194 Cd, which the company claims is the lowest among mass-produced electric hatchback sedans. It also claims energy consumption of 11.5 kWh of electricity per 62 miles (100 km).