Its last round of funding can be traced back to August 2018, when CNY 4 billion was raised.
On November 13, Xiaomi (小米) and Matrix Partners China (经纬中国) announced the injection of a total of USD 400 million into XPENG Motors (小鹏汽车).
Previously, the automaker raised CNY 4 billion in its Series B+ round of financing in August 2018, which was led by Primavera Capital (春华资本), Morningside Venture Capital (晨兴资本) and He Xiaopeng (何小鹏), the current chairman and CEO of the company. Its post-money valuation thereby hit CNY 25 billion.
Founded in 2014, the Guangzhou-based company is one of the leading Chinese automobile manufacturers. So far, the firm has delivered its G3 model to the market, though only 522 cars were shipped last year due to its limited capacity.
At the ‘1024 XPENG Motors Intelligent Technology Sharing’ conference held by the company recently, Mr. He disclosed that XPENG Motors is expecting to achieve mass production of ‘Level three automatic driving’ (XPILOT3) by the end of 2020. The company is on its way to reaching XPILOT4 in 2022 – the autopilot capability that fully adapts to driving in cities.
Its upcoming model – Xiaopeng P7 (小鹏P7), a purely electric vehicle that emphasizes performance – has great potential from the perspective of some market insiders. According to their estimates, the price of this model is likely to be similar to that of the Tesla Model 3 which has been just mass-produced domestically.
Just as the company’s previously released G3-520 is the first new energy vehicle in China empowered with the NCM811 battery produced by Contemporary Amperex Technology (宁德时代), the Xiaopeng P7 is expected to come equipped with the high energy cell with the same density.
Expected to be unveiled at the 2019 Guangzhou Auto Show, the mass production of Xiaopeng P7 is scheduled to be delivered around the second quarter of 2020.
China’s electric vehicle industry is receiving positive news these days. Apart from XPENG Motors’ announcement of its next round of funding, the stock price of NIO (蔚来) also surged up in recent days, which somehow suggests a slight recovery in the sector.