XPeng L05 electric and range-extender SUV on sale in China, due in NZ early next year

XPeng’s new L05 mid-size SUV has gone on sale in China, and it’s expected to arrive in New Zealand in the first quarter of next year.

The L05 was one of five models XPeng announced for Australia and New Zealand at its Melbourne brand day in July. The L03 compact SUV and the G9L large SUV were put on the local roadmap for the fourth quarter of this year. XPeng NZ sales manager Sean Tupp told us then that New Zealand would follow the same schedule as Australia. Local pricing and specifications are yet to be announced.

The car was launched at an owners’ event in Guangzhou on 29 October. XPeng says it has already built 5,000 of them, and shipments to overseas markets started a few days before the Chinese launch. It developed the left- and right-hand-drive versions alongside each other and plans to sell the L05 in 65 countries, with Europe getting it in 2027. Before launch, 660 test cars covered more than 5 million km across 25 countries, in conditions ranging from -25°C in Norway to 50°C in the UAE.

In China the L05 is offered as either a battery EV or a range-extender, with prices starting at RMB 144,800. Both use a single 183kW rear motor. The EVs come with a 58.2kWh or 71.1kWh LFP battery, good for up to 635km on the Chinese CLTC cycle. XPeng quotes 15.8 minutes to charge from 30-80%, and 0-100km/h in 7.3 seconds with the smaller battery or 6.8 seconds with the larger one. The range-extender pairs a 37.2kWh battery, rated for 310km of electric driving, with a 42-litre tank, for a claimed 1,310km in total.

At 4,870mm long on a 2,940mm wheelbase, it’s a fair bit bigger than the L03. The boot holds 702 litres, or 1,913 litres with the rear seats down, and the EVs also have a 102-litre front boot.

The top Ultra SE versions run XPeng’s latest VLA 2.0 driver assistance on two of its in-house Turing chips, while the rest use a single chip and a cut-down version of the same software. If the driver becomes incapacitated during assisted motorway driving, the car will pull over, raise the alarm and send a distress message to other XPeng vehicles within 1km. XPeng said in July that it wants its VLA 2.0-based Navigation Guided Pilot running in New Zealand before the end of 2027, if local rules allow it.

Inside there’s a 17.3-inch centre screen and a 26.8-inch head-up display, along with XPeng’s new Master Agent AI assistant, which can plan trips and handle vaguer navigation requests. The front passenger gets a massaging zero-gravity seat, and the rear bench reclines electrically.