Category: Reviews

There’s a(nother) new Chinese brand heading to the United Kingdom and Europe with the promise of marvellous technology, toys aplenty, and an approach to electric driving that no other brand can hope to offer.

We’ve heard this sort of thing before. But XPeng promises to be different from the rest. It’s a tech-first carmaker with products that aren’t only affordable but also, crucially in this case, take the fight directly to the Tesla Model Y—a car from a brand that’s not exactly winning right now. 

The contender in question is the XPeng G6. And the question is: is this newcomer worth your cash over a Tesla, or any of the other electric options out there?  

XPeng G6: What Is It?

It’s an all-new, all-singing, all-dancing electric SUV hailing from China. XPeng was founded in 2014 and bills itself as a tech company over anything else. That means its cars come with plenty of exciting features that promise magical things like an 800V architecture, an AI assistant that says it’ll predict your needs, and wireless phone charging that doesn’t suck. 

The G6 isn’t XPeng’s first car by any means. It’s made sedans, different-sized SUVs, and even an MPV. But this is the model it seems to be pinning its hopes on for a stress-free voluminous launch. Like the rest of the XPeng lineup, it is EV-only, and aims to fill family driveways up and down the nation. 

You can’t accuse it of being exciting to look at, but it’s not ugly either. In fact, if you compare it to the latest take on the Model Y, it fares favorably. It still falls into the “egg shape good” trap that ensnares many modern EVs. What’s good for aerodynamics and range isn’t necessarily good for the eyes. 

Inside, you’ll find a fairly monotone interior. The outside isn’t feast and neither is the inside. Drivers get a small 10.2-inch instrument screen to keep an eye on the important stuff, and everyone else can clap their eyes on a 15-inch infotainment screen. The keen-eyed among you will spot a double wireless chargepad with built-in fans to keep your phones cool as you glide along. That’s a neat touch. 

If you’re after a big SUV—big for Europe anyway, as everything’s relative—with lots of gadgets and smart looks, XPeng has something to show you. 

XPeng G6: Specs And Features

You want numbers? The G6 has LOTS of numbers.

The car I had on test was a RWD Standard Range, and there’s a RWD Long Range car for people who want to go a bit further. Those two are the UK’s standard lineup, though a mega-quick AWD car is available elsewhere.

The base car comes with a 258 hp, 324 lb-ft motor powering the rear wheels, while the long-range car will net you the same torque and 286 hp, also driving the rears. Standard range cars come with a 66kWh LFP battery, while the LR cars come with an 87.5kWh NCM unit. 

There’s not a huge performance difference between the two cars, with the bigger battery car sneaking 0-62mph in 6.2 seconds to the base car’s 6.6. Not slow, but not so fast you’ll rinse the battery in 30 seconds flat.  

The range for the standard car is 270 miles, while the bigger battery will get you 345 miles. When it comes to charging, the entry-level car can take 215 kW chargers, while the top spec can handle 280 kW. Either way, you’ll supposedly charge from 10% to 80% in about 20 minutes. 

XPeng G6: How Does It Drive? 

It’s big, it’s quiet, and it’s covered in cameras and sensors to make sure you don’t bend it. All of that’s a huge bonus around town, where the roads are doggedly staying the same width and will continue to do so. The sound deadening in the cockpit is stellar, and means whatever’s going on around you won’t ruin your day. 

There’s enough grunt to get away from the lights clearly, but you don’t feel like you’re entering hyperspace. XPeng, at least on these RWD cars, recognises that you don’t need supercar pace to have a good time. 

Much like its aesthetic, you can’t accuse the G6 of being an exciting car. It’s not a pin-sharp angerbox designed for carving corners. It knows its place, and that’s tooling around posh ‘burbs doing real-life stuff. The steering doesn’t fizz in your fingers, the brakes are easy enough to modulate, and you can see out of the thing (though the rear visibility is, per the norm, not stellar through the rear windshield; there’s a back up camera to take care of reversing) when you’re in tight spots.  

What’s Good About The XPeng G6?

While the XPeng has more than its fair share of intrusive safety systems, it’s also got a way to quickly and easily turn them off. Each key cycle turns the whole suite back on, but when you’re on the move when the speed limit bong goes off, or the driver alertness ping fires up, there’ll be an option on the screen to quickly switch it off.

A couple of prods later and the system turns it all off. Competitors make it difficult to turn all that stuff off, but the G6 doesn’t. 

It doesn’t pretend to be a sports car and that’s a good thing. So many manufacturers seem to think that giving their cars a billion horsepower and putting a “HYPERMASC” button somewhere that kicks the motor up the ass and plasters you to a seat is a good idea. It really, really isn’t. Most people just want something nice, comfortable, and pleasingly brisk. 

The G6 doesn’t pretend to be a rocketship. And it’s all the better for it. 

While there are no buttons on the center stack, there are some on the steering wheel. Unless you’ve got other systems activated, you can control the air con through it. A neat solution to a frustrating problem. 

The G6 comes with Active Lane Change tech to keep you driving in lane, and it won’t complain if you have your hands on the wheel while it does the hard work for you. Knock the indicator, and it’ll change lanes (mostly) without any trouble. For the ‘mostly’ bit, see the next section. 

What’s Bad About The XPeng G6? 

Now’s the time for the “mostly” bit per above. Yes, the G6 can use Active Lane Change to move laterally for you on the highway. All you need to do is tell the indicator you want to move and away you go. Though on more than one occasion, it gave up mid-manuever.. On a fast-moving highway that’s distinctly ungood. Still, you get to practise your swearing as you take back control.  

On a similar note, it does come with a Lane Centering Control lane keep assist function, which is neat for making sure you don’t stray from your lane if you’re not the sort of driver who pays close attention to such things. But it’s a bit grabby if you know what you’re doing. And that’s annoying. 

Everything, pretty much, is done via a screen. It’s a responsive screen, but digging through menus and swapping screens to get around just isn’t IT in 2025. Bring back buttons. Please. 

And again, it’s not very exciting to look at. An old friend has a theory that all cars are, very slowly, morphing into eggs. The XPeng G6 is another step on the evolutionary chain to Auto Ovumiens. Especially in white. 

XPeng G6: How Is It As An EV?

It’s fine at what it needs to do. Removing any pretense of silly speed has done it plenty of favors as even the standard range car managed pretty stellar efficiency in warmish weather, clocking in at 4.2 miles per kWh over mixed driving—a touch more than its quoted WLTP efficiency should be. That was a pleasant surprise. 

It’s quiet, comfy, efficient, and charges fast enough that if you need to splash ‘n dash out in public, you won’t be waiting too long. 

XPeng G6: The Verdict

XPeng is a new brand in the UK, and comparatively new in the wider world. You can see the firm’s keen to make the most of all the tech it has at its disposal—that much is clear from all the stuff going on via the center stack—but as a first car for the UK market, it’s a strong start. 

It’s aimed squarely at people who want a sensible family ride that won’t do their back in, threaten to tear away if you press the throttle too hard, and won’t eat its battery at a moment’s notice. It’s not going to break the bank either. In fact, the base car is £10 shy of the UK’s luxury car tax threshold, which saves a heap of cash. 

Chinese EVs aren’t just becoming a common sight on UK roads. Increasingly, they’re the norm. Legacy brands are holding the top spots for now, sure, but as more and more come onto the market, buyers are drawn in by generous standard equipment, standout design (in some cases), and price points that appear too good to be true compared to the old guard. 

We can’t ignore the Tesla issue either. While those cars paved the way for EV acceptance, the lineup is long in the tooth, and the man at the top has (if we put this really politely) courted controversy to the point that sales are tanking all over Europe. Where once only a Californian car would do, China’s efforts are looking more and more appealing. That’s where the XPeng G6 really shines; if you want a Model Y but don’t want the Elon baggage, this has emerged as a very interesting alternative.

Its flaws are annoying, and it’s not the most exciting car to look at, but as a car to simply be A Car… well, it’s pretty good. Legacy manufacturers shouldn’t necessarily be shaking in their boots yet, but they should be keeping an eye open for XPeng. 

Alex Goy is a freelance journalist based in London. He likes British sports cars, tea, and the feeling of the mild peril that only owning a British sports car can bring to your day.

Slate Auto and Telo Trucks have each announced small electric pickup trucks that are radically different from your run-of-the-mill Ford F-150. 

But the Slate and the Telo MT1 represent very different visions of what an electric truck can be. Here’s how they stack up across key areas like range, price, design and performance. Just remember, neither of these trucks is on sale yet, so we’re going off of targeted, preliminary information. 

Slate Auto vs. Telo Trucks

Slate was founded in 2022 and came out of stealth in April, when it also unveiled its debut model. It’s staffed up by industry veterans from Tesla, Harley-Davidson, Chrysler and more. The idea behind Slate is to create the affordable, bare-bones electric vehicle that the U.S. has been missing. 

Telo Trucks revealed the design of its truck, the MT1, in late 2023. The California-based startup is a scrappier operation, comprising just 11 engineers. It’s all about creating a super-compact, functional truck for people who live in and near cities. 

Both are venture-backed. Slate has raised at least $111 million from investors including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, TechCrunch reported. Telo’s investors include Tesla co-founder Marc Tarpenning, through his firm Spero Ventures. 

Design & Size

The Slate follows a hyper-traditional, boxy design. Squint and you can barely tell that it’s electric or built after the year 2005. 

The MT1, on the other hand, looks like it’s from the future. It has a squished front end, and you can tell the intention was to leverage the inherent flexibility of an EV platform to create extra space in a compact design. 

The Slate is a spartan two-seater with a five-foot bed. The Telo also has a five-foot bet, but manages to squeeze in five seats. 

The Telo is 152 inches long, about the size of a Mini Cooper. The Slate is 174.6 inches long. That’s still about two feet shorter than a Ford Maverick. 

The Telo boasts a stylish, minimalist interior with interesting textures and a modestly sized touchscreen front and center. The Slate takes the minimalism to a whole different level with a gray interior, manual windows, lots of plastic and no infotainment screen. 

Notable Features

Customization is a big part of how Slate is trying to differentiate itself. Slate buyers get an extremely basic truck as standard, but they can also choose from a vast catalog of cool accessories. 

That includes a bolt-on SUV kit that adds a roof and a second row. Other add-ons include interior finishes, speakers (you don’t get any sound system otherwise) and colorful vinyl wraps (every truck comes in gray from the factory). 

The Telo offers a collapsable midgate, which allows long items like surfboards or full-size sheets of plywood to poke into the cab. It comes with an extra transverse cargo area behind the back seats, much like Rivian’s Gear Tunnel. 

And it can be optioned with extra seats in the bed and an enclosed roof. 

Price

Slate says its truck will start at less than $20,000, after factoring in the federal incentive for plug-in car buyers. That means the actual MSRP should be around $27,000. 

Telo says the MT1 will cost $41,520 and up. Factoring in the $7,500 federal rebate theoretically knocks that down to roughly $34,000. 

Range, Batteries & Charging

Here’s how these trucks stack up in terms of their EV specs. 

Truck Stuff & Performance

Neither of these trucks is designed to replace your Ford Super Duty. They’re more for trips to Home Depot or carrying a couple of bikes to the trails, or potentially specialized fleet applications. But the Telo claims better performance numbers across the board. Again, the Slate is more about basic transportation. Telo plans to charge more for more capability. 

When Can You Buy One?

Both trucks are available to reserve now with a refundable deposit. Telo aims to start production in 2026 through a contract manufacturer, using off-the-shelf components to bring down cost. 

Slate has taken over a Warsaw, Indiana, printing factory, where it will kick off production in Q4 of 2026. 

Got a tip or question about the EV world? Contact the author: Tim.Levin@InsideEVs.com

Suppose there’s such a thing as the iPhone of cars. If that exists at all, it’s assuredly the Tesla Model Y. Tesla’s midsize electric crossover has earned its stripes as the world’s best-selling electric vehicle (and best-selling single model of car, period) for its unassailable combination of range, power, tech features, price and practicality.

But right as an updated Model Y makes its debut, a lot of people have their reasons for wanting to move on from Tesla. That also coincides with a new crop of highly competitive EVs from other brands that just weren’t in the same class as Tesla five years ago, but are now catching up and even doing some things better. 

Our friends at Edmunds highlight the state of play in a new video comparison test of highly-rated electric family crossovers: the new Model Y “Juniper,” the Honda Prologue, the Chevrolet Equinox EV and the updated Hyundai Ioniq 5. Independent of anything else, each of these is a good choice—but one emerges as being truly on par with the Tesla, which until recently was hard to pull off. 

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In fourth place is the Honda Prologue, 2024’s surprise EV success story. It’s a General Motors EV underneath the skin until Honda starts to do its own thing. But that’s not a bad thing at all—especially as the Prologue adds some Honda vibes but keeps Apple CarPlay, unlike GM’s own cars.

And it’s extra roomy with lots of room for luggage and the biggest cupholders in the test; Honda sure knows how to sell cars to Americans. The Prologue Elite, as tested here, comes in at $59,295 and offers up to 283 miles of range.

Coming up behind it is the Chevy Equinox EV, our 2024 Breakthrough Award winner and pound-for-pound one of the best electric bargains in America. Edmunds‘ tester comes in at $34,995, and lately it’s been acing the hell out of its range tests with a stunning 356-mile result. (I’ll add that I’ve never experienced anything that good from the Equinox EV, but Edmunds’ local Southern California weather is probably helping a lot.)

But it’s also smaller than the rest and the sole contender that’s single-motor and front-wheel-drive, so it’s no wonder it does better than its all-wheel-drive counterparts. It “almost gets to the top spot on its value proposition,” tester Brian Wong says. 

Yet what’s really telling about this test is that it ends in a dead heat. Though the Model Y was long the crossover to beat in this space—and indeed, the updated one seems to be very good—it ties with the updated Ioniq 5 here. 

Edmunds‘ Model Y Launch Series (which was recently discontinued) comes in at $61,635 and offers an impressive 327 miles of range. It’s got a nicer, quieter cabin, more range, different looks and finally, better ride quality than the previous Model Y.

Wong calls it one of the most comfortable EVs you can buy today—definitely not something you’d say about the last car. And while Tesla’s tech is always good, its Full Self-Driving system “makes some questionable decisions.” 

Wong notes that the Juniper is a “big improvement” for the Model Y, and that the previous generation “would have only gotten third place in this test. But now, it is on equal footing with the Ioniq 5.” That Wong phrased that sentence this way, and not the other way around, says a lot about how Tesla’s competition is getting better and better. 

In the Ioniq 5’s case, that means a standard Tesla-style North American Charging Standard plug and native Tesla Supercharger access without an adapter. Coming in loaded at $60,285 and with a range of 282 miles, it’s simply more user-friendly than the Tesla is: buttons, knobs and physical air vents make operation a lot easier than Tesla’s all-screen approach. It also has wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a clever sliding center console, a comfortable cabin and punchy performance. 

Is the updated Ioniq 5 now Tesla’s most fearsome competition in the U.S. market? I’d say it’s looking that way, now more than ever. Ultimately, Edmunds‘ Wong said your choice comes down to what you prefer: the Tesla’s “uncompromising minimalism” or the Ioniq 5’s “futuristic familiarity.”

But even the tie verdict makes clear that the Model Y isn’t the default top choice in the EV crossover world anymore, and that alone is a huge advancement for the entire field. 

Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com

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