Xpeng Defies China's EV Price War with Steady Sales as Tesla and Local Rivals Struggle to Keep Up

Chinese electric vehicle (EV) startup Xpeng is maintaining strong sales momentum amid an intensifying price war, even as BYD continues to dominate the market.

On Tuesday, Xpeng announced it delivered 34,611 vehicles in June, marking the eighth consecutive month it has surpassed 30,000 deliveries.

The company’s shares rose over 2% in New York trading. Xpeng didn’t disclose how many of the deliveries were from its advanced driver-assist models or from its more affordable Mona brand.

China’s EV price war has escalated in recent weeks, prompting government criticism of excessive and unproductive competition, referred to as “involution.” On Tuesday, President Xi Jinping led a high-level financial and economic meeting calling for better regulation of “low-price, chaotic competition,” according to a CNBC translation of state media.

Mixed Results from Competitors

Xpeng’s U.S.-listed competitors, which cater to China’s premium EV segment, showed more modest sales momentum:

Zeekr (backed by Geely) reported 16,702 deliveries in June, down 11.7% from May and 16.9% year-over-year.

Nio delivered 24,925 vehicles, a slight increase from May, boosted by both its premium Nio brand and its lower-cost Onvo and Firefly brands.

Li Auto delivered 36,279 vehicles, a decline of 11.2% from the previous month. However, its total Q2 deliveries reached 111,074 units, surpassing its revised target of 108,000.

Last Friday, Li Auto cut its Q2 forecast by over 15,000 vehicles, citing a major sales system upgrade.

According to Nomura analysts, starting June 2025, Li Auto began prohibiting additional discounts offered by salespeople from their personal commissions, in an effort to reduce internal competition and enhance service quality and brand recognition. Most Li Auto models are SUVs with a backup fuel tank, which extends driving range—one of the biggest consumer concerns for EVs.

Late last year, Li Auto’s monthly deliveries had topped 50,000 units.

Tesla Under Pressure

Xiaomi, listed in Hong Kong, reported over 25,000 EV deliveries in June, a slight dip from the previous month.

Less than 24 hours after announcing that its new YU7 SUV would be 10,000 yuan ($1,400) cheaper than Tesla’s Model Y, Xiaomi said it had received over 240,000 locked-in orders. Xiaomi claimed the YU7 offered a longer driving range than the Model Y, though it acknowledged Tesla’s autonomous driving tech remains more advanced.

As of now, YU7 delivery times have extended to over six months, according to Xiaomi’s online portal. Originally, delivery was promised within 1–5 weeks.

“We believe a significant portion of new orders may come from scalpers, reflecting expectations of extreme popularity for the new model,” said Junheng Li, CEO of JL Warren Capital.

She added: “We estimate Tesla’s Q2 sales in China to be around 128,000 units, down 12% year-over-year, pressured by intensified competition from new Chinese EV models.”

Tesla has also increased the price of its Model 3 Long-Range AWD in China by 10,000 yuan, according to its website on Tuesday.

As of May, Tesla was the fifth-largest automaker in China’s new energy vehicle (NEV) segment, which includes both battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. Data from the China Passenger Car Association shows Tesla’s retail sales in China for the first five months slightly declined to just over 200,000 vehicles. June figures weren’t available as of Wednesday morning.

Leapmotor and Aito Maintain Growth

Leapmotor, which partnered with Stellantis (the parent company of Chrysler and Jeep) for overseas markets, posted record deliveries of 48,006 vehicles in June.

Aito, which integrates Huawei’s infotainment and driver-assist technologies, reported 44,685 deliveries for the month.

Competing with a Giant

BYD remains the dominant player, with June sales of 377,628 passenger vehicles—more than half of which were fully electric, and the rest plug-in hybrids.

That brings BYD’s total H1 sales to 2.1 million vehicles.

By comparison:

Leapmotor and Li Auto each delivered over 200,000 vehicles in the first half of 2025.

Xpeng came close with 197,189 deliveries.

Xiaomi exceeded 150,000 deliveries, based on CNBC’s calculations from publicly disclosed data.

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