The XPeng plant in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, where the company is headquartered, has reportedly begun production. It will produce models including the company’s flagship SUV, the G9.
Guangzhou Kaide Holdings Limited Company, the plant’s contractor, revealed the news in a WeChat post yesterday. It claimed that the plant is located in the Guangzhou Development Zone and has an annual capacity of 120,000 vehicles.
The Guangzhou plant is XPeng’s second plant with stamping, welding, painting, final assembly workshops, new model trial, and vehicle manufacturing capabilities after the one in Zhaoqing, Guangdong.
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology approved
Guangzhou Kaide was founded in 1998 as a state-owned enterprise to speed up the development of the Guangzhou Development Zone. XPeng still has to reveal a start-up date for the plant.
According to Guangzhou Kaide, XPeng’s Guangzhou plant began building in September 2020. It took nine and a half months to finish the first prototype vehicle.
Future models, including the XPeng G9, will be produced at the facility, which has been given the go-ahead by China‘s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology for vehicle manufacturing to start in December 2022.
XPeng was established in 2014, and its first model, the G3 SUV, was released in September 2016.
The model was then OEM’d by Haima Motor in Zhengzhou, though XPeng’s OEM contract expires at the end of 2021, after which all its models will be manufactured at its plant.
The first XPeng plant in Zhaoqing started construction in late 2017, while production began in May 2020. In September 2020, the company started constructing a second plant in Guangzhou.
Chinese publication Jiemian cited a source, stating that XPeng’s Guangzhou plant was eligible to produce vehicles in January and only initially produced the flagship SUV G9.
Opening this coming March
The report states that the plant will be ready for customers and partners to visit in early March.
XPeng currently offers the G3i, P5, P7, and G9, with all models except the G9 manufactured in Zhaoqing.
The G9, based on a new platform and will go on sale in September 2022, is manufactured in Guangzhou. It has an initial design capacity of 100,000 vehicles annually, according to Jiemian’s previous report.
Qualifications for auto production are strictly controlled in China. According to Jiemian, XPeng’s production qualification was among the few in the last five years.
XPeng produced 5,218 vehicles in January, a decrease of 59.62% from the same month last year and a decrease of 53.79% from the previous month. In January, the automaker delivered 2,249 G9 units.
On September 21, 2022, the XPeng G9 was officially released in China, and deliveries started on October 27. According to CnEVPost data, 8,622 G9 units were delivered in China by the end of January.
