Tesla unveiled its new Mannequin Y with a refreshed design in China and lots of identified that it seems remarkably much like Xpeng’s P7, which is humorous as a result of Xpeng itself was a Tesla copycat at its inception.
It goes full circle.
Henry Xia, who based Xpeng in 2014, admitted brazenly that he was influenced by Tesla and by the automaker’s announcement that they had been open-sourcing their patents.
It was reportedly the primary firm to really take up Tesla on utilizing their patents without cost.
However issues took a flip for the more severe from there.
Xpeng went past simply taking inspiration from Tesla and its considerably open patents. It copied Tesla’s Autopilot and cluster consumer interface:
Tesla later additionally initiated a lawsuit in opposition to Guangzhi Cao, a former Autopilot engineer who give up to affix Xpeng’s autonomous driving crew. The automaker accused the engineer of stealing Tesla’s Autopilot supply code for Xpeng.
The lawsuit was settled in 2021. Xpeng was not the social gathering to the lawsuit and said that its personal driver-assist options relied on in-house improvement.
However Xpeng didn’t cease copying Tesla there. The Chinese language firm blatantly copied Tesla’s web site for a quick second in 2020:
Now, a number of years later, you can argue that it’s going the opposite approach round.
Yesterday, Tesla unveiled its Mannequin Y design refresh in China with the most important change being a front-end redesign that’s remarkably much like Xpeng’s P7+ and different autos within the Chinese language EV automaker’s lineup.
It options the identical 3-section lightbar and really comparable headlights popping out of the aspect air intakes:
Xpeng senior designer Rafik Ferrag additionally seen the resemblance, and in a brand new publish on Instagram right now, he mentioned that he believes Tesla is “paying tribute” to Xpeng’s design with the brand new Mannequin Y refresh:
In 2019, Xiaopeng P7 introduced a development of entrance cross-over lamp to your complete business. In truth, this set of options was designed by us in 2018 and has been used as Xiaopeng’s DNA and id since then. It’s nonetheless being paid tribute to by varied producers corresponding to Tesla and LX.
Proper earlier than Tesla’s unveiling of the brand new Mannequin Y, Xpeng shared the primary official pictures of its new G7 SUV, which contains a comparable front-end:
Xpeng has seen its automobile deliveries surge 34% in 2024 in comparison with Tesla’s deliveries being down 1%. The G7 can also be positioned to be one in all Tesla’s high Mannequin Y competitor in China, which is its most vital market.
Electrek’s Take
It all the time goes full circle. There’s little doubt in thoughts that Xpeng copied Tesla up to now and whereas I can’t affirm that Tesla copied Xpeng right here, it appears extraordinarily more likely to me.
Xpeng has been doing very effectively with its lineup in China this 12 months and now the G7 is critical competitors to Tesla’s major cash maker: promoting Mannequin Y autos in China.
Is Tesla getting nervous?
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