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A Chinese Musk And His Tesla Clones?


RV_

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I have just become aware of XPENG cars and will be following. I m still holding my last block of Tesla stock and my primary investing goal is Starlink on IPO. But man doe these guys look like a winner. A lot of interesting reading.

Excerpt:

"He Xiaopeng never hid the fact that he admired Tesla. He openly stated on more than one occasion that XPeng happily made use of Tesla’s open-source information and so it’s easy to see the brand simply as a Tesla clone. Even in the design of the cars, there are some similarities with the American brand. And things didn’t get any better when the Cao Guangzhi case surfaced. Former Tesla employee Cao moved to XPeng to work on XPilot and then was accused of stealing the Autopilot source code. Cao first denied the charges but later admitted to copying the source code before leaving Tesla. Tesla and Cao eventually settled the case out of court. Although XPeng was never formally charged with anything (and proved its own source code did not contain anything from Tesla’s Autopilot), their reputation suffered. Cao no longer works for XPeng.

An interesting development is XPeng’s announcement that lidar will come as standard on the P5 sedan. This is a mid-price car, cheaper than a Model 3, while most manufacturers have so far rejected lidar because it’s horribly expensive. If XPeng (and maybe some other Chinese brands) manage to increase the production volume of the system, maybe prices will come down. It would mean a significant step forward for autonomous driving technology.

 

XPeng P7 Wing XPeng P7 Wing

When the G3 is planned to go into production, XPeng’s own factory has not been finished yet. So for the G3 XPeng reverts to contract to manufacture and selects Haima Automobile as their supplier. Haima is a small brand, headquartered in sub-tropical Hainan province, that produces passenger cars through a joint venture with FAW and light commercial vehicles in its own factory in Zhengzhou (this is actually the former Zhengzhou Light Vehicle Works). The G3 will be assembled in the Zhengzhou plant.

Sources:

https://carnewschina.com/2021/08/08/the-big-read-history-of-xpeng/

https://marketingsentinel.com/2021/08/06/xpeng-inc-nyse-xpev-shares-fall-by-12-20-percent-in-the-past-week-but-how-long-will-it-last/

https://www.bing.com/search?pc=U523&q=XPENG+stock&form=U523DF\

 

RV/Derek
http://www.rvroadie.com Email on the bottom of my website page.
Retired AF 1971-1998


When you see a worthy man, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, look inside yourself. - Confucius

 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” ... Voltaire

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