Tesla unveiled its new Model Y with a refreshed design in China and many pointed out that it looks remarkably similar to Xpengโs P7, which is funny because Xpeng itself was a Tesla copycat at its inception.
It goes full circle.
Henry Xia, who founded Xpeng in 2014, admitted openly that he was influenced by Tesla and by the automakerโs announcement thatย they were open-sourcing their patents.
It was reportedly the first company to actually take up Tesla on using their patents for free.
But things took a turn for the worse from there.
ย Xpeng went beyond just taking inspiration from Tesla and its somewhat open patents. Itย copied Teslaโs Autopilot and cluster user interface:
Tesla later also initiated a lawsuit against Guangzhi Cao,ย a former Autopilot engineer who quit to join Xpengโs autonomous driving team. The automaker accused the engineer of stealing Teslaโs Autopilot source code for Xpeng.
The lawsuit was settled in 2021. Xpeng was not the party to the lawsuit and stated that its own driver-assist features relied on in-house development.
But Xpeng didnโt stop copying Tesla there. The Chinese company blatantly copied Teslaโs website for a brief moment in 2020:
Now, a few years later, you could argue that it is going the other way around.
Yesterday, Tesla unveiled its Model Y design refresh in China with the biggest change being a front-end redesign that is remarkably similar to Xpengโs P7+ and other vehicles in the Chinese EV automakerโs lineup.
It features the same 3-section lightbar and very similar headlights coming out of the side air intakes:
Xpeng senior designer Rafik Ferrag also noticed the resemblance, and in a new post on Instagram today, he said that he believes Tesla is โpaying tributeโ to Xpengโs design with the new Model Y refresh:
In 2019, Xiaopeng P7 brought a trend of front cross-over lamp to the entire industry. In fact, this set of solutions was designed by us in 2018 and has been used as Xiaopengโs DNA and identity since then. It is still being paid tribute to by various manufacturers such as Tesla and LX.
Right before Teslaโs unveiling of the new Model Y, Xpeng shared the first official images of its new G7 SUV, which features a similar front-end:
Xpeng has seen its vehicle deliveries surge 34% in 2024 compared to Teslaโs deliveries being down 1%. The G7 is also positioned to be one of Teslaโs top Model Y competitor in China, which is its most important market.
Electrekโs Take
It always goes full circle. Thereโs no doubt in mind that Xpeng copied Tesla in the past and while I canโt confirm that Tesla copied Xpeng here, it seems extremely likely to me.
Xpeng has been doing very well with its lineup in China this year and now the G7 is serious competition to Teslaโs main money maker: selling Model Y vehicles in China.
Is Tesla getting nervous?
