BEIJING — Chinese electric vehicle Manufacturer Xpeng on Tuesday set the price of the first model of its budget sub-brand MONA at $16,813, placing the brand in the regular but highly competitive segment of the world’s largest car market.
The MONA M03 electric hatchback coupe is Xpeng’s most affordable model and will compete with other electric cars in the 100,000-150,000 yuan ($14,035-$21,052) price range, accounting for a third of total car sales in China.
There will be two versions of the MONA M03: an entry-level model without advanced autonomous driving tech, starting at $16,813, and the M03 Max, which uses Tesla-like tech and starts at $21,866. Both are cheaper than the cheapest Xpeng-branded EV, the P5 sedan, which starts at $22,000.
Deliveries of the M03 Max, “the only car with advanced autonomous driving for less than 200,000 yuan ($28,068),” will begin early next year, said He Xiaopeng, co-founder and CEO of XPeng Motors. He was speaking at a launch gala in Beijing that also marked the Guangzhou-based automaker’s 10th anniversary.
Xpeng developed the Mona brand after acquiring the EV development division of Didi Global, the Chinese taxi company that has made significant withdrawals from the highly competitive electric vehicle market.
With Mona, loss-making Xpeng expects to achieve better economies of scale to break even. The company previously said it expected annual sales of at least 100,000 MONA cars. Xpeng’s gross profit margin has improved this year, thanks to a 20% increase in electric vehicle sales in the first seven months from a year earlier and a boost in revenue from offering technology services to Volkswagen.
Xpeng’s Chinese rival Nio also launched a lower-cost brand, Onvo, in April. The Onvo L60, which goes on sale in September, is expected to be the Tesla’s best selling Model Y in China.
Both the Onvo and Mona EVs do not use lidar sensors in their advanced autonomous driving technologies, a strategy similar to Tesla’s camera-only Full-Self Driving that has reduced hardware costs for EVs. A lidar sensor costs several thousand yuan, though the price has dropped sharply in the past two years as Chinese lidar makers such as Hesai Technology have increased production.
Xpeng launched the P5 in 2021, the world’s first mass-produced car with optional lidar sensors. However, last September, it removed the lidar sensor from the P5 to lower its lowest price to $22,000 and target price-sensitive consumers. Xpeng cars with lidar sensors currently start at $31,450.