China has a fascination with electric vehicles unlike any other country on earth and seemingly every day, a new electric vehicle from the People’s Republic slides across our desks.
One of the most covered all-new electric vehicles from China to emerge in the past 12 months is the Xpeng G3. First unveiled at CES in January 2018, the electric crossover bears a few obvious similarities to the Tesla Model X. The video below, discovered by Jalopnik, captures some of those.
Now, we’re not going to stretch as far as calling it a blatant 1:1 copy, because it isn’t. Sure, the front may have some resemblance to the Model X due to the lack of a traditional front grille and similarly-shaped headlights, but most of the SUV’s exterior is unique. For example, the rear has a set of horizontal taillights joined together by a strip of darkened red plastic unlike anything found on models with a Tesla badge.
Original Tesla Model X interior (above) vs Xpeng G3 (below)
While the exterior is largely original or at least different enough, the same cannot be said for the interior as Xpeng appears to have copied many elements of the cabin of the Model X. The centerpiece of the G3’s cabin is a massive, vertical touchscreen in the center of the dashboard where almost all of the vehicle’s functions can be controlled from. The digital gauge cluster also has a near-identical shape to the Model X’s. Heck, even the steering wheel of the G3 shares more than just a few traits with the Model X’s.
Unlike many other Chinese car startups to launch in recent years, Xpeng has some serious money behind it. In fact, both Alibaba and Foxconn have invested at least $350 million in the company and the firm has secured a contract with Nvidia to use its advanced ‘Xavier’ AI platform.
