As we bid adieu to 2024, XPeng founder and CEO He Xiaopeng is setting the stage for a big 2025. The EV executive posted an internal letter to XPeng staff outlining the company’s key goals for the upcoming year, imploring all to prepare for fiercer competition in the EV segment and even predicted a price war on the immediate horizon.
During the last hours of 2024, XPeng Motors ($XPEV) operates as one of the EV leaders in China. We at Electrek have covered much of the automaker’s rise to prominence, especially as it has expanded the availability of its EV lineup to global markets like Europe.
XPeng’s portfolio currently consists of seven all-electric models, including the new MONA M03 launched in 2024. Additionally, the company has established its own network of EV chargers and proprietary autonomous driving technology. It also has a business arm dedicated to aerial eVTOL travel, including a flying car prototype.
In 2025, XPeng Motors looks to continue to build on the momentum it has garnered in recent years. However, the company’s founder and CEO relayed that there is still room for improvement for the automaker to remain competitive and, in many ways, lead the industry in China.
XPeng starts 2025 to become #1 overseas
Many businesses may be slowing down and shuttering for a few days to ring in 2025, but XPeng founder and CEO He Xiaopeng remains dialed in. The CEO recently shared an internal letter with the XPeng staff, obtained by the Chinese media outlet CnEVPost.
In the letter, Xiaopeng outlined the company goals for the coming year as well as long term targets to continue global growth in hopes of becoming a household name in EVs. To get there, the XPeng founder said the company must be resilient as he predicts China’s EV industry will enter an elimination phase between 2025 and 2027. As such, he’s warned his staff to prepare for fiercer competition next year, going as far as stating a bold prediction. Per the internal letter:
The market will definitely see fiercer competition in 2025, and I can even make a bold prediction that price war will ignite from January.
Innovation and efficiency will be core tenets of XPeng’s strategy in the future to remain a leader in EVs in 2025 and beyond. Xiaopeng told staff that vehicle companies that lack innovative technology and core competencies, such as comprehensive R&D and marketing capabilities, will miss their opportunity for sustained growth. This could lead to a fading into irrelevance, as warned by Xiaopeng, over the next three years since the Chinese EV market is so saturated.
New Energy Vehicle (NEV) adoption continues to soar overseas, but an influx of similar EV styles and configurations will trigger even more competition and the vital need to stand out. Here are some additional goals for 2025 outlined by the XPeng CEO in the letter:
- Over the next three years, XPeng needs to improve its “systemization capabilities.
- The company must increase its capabilities’ upper limit through systemic innovation, acquire more comprehensive capabilities in the lower limit, and achieve a balance.
- In the next 10 years, Xiaopeng wants to become a leading global AI car company in products, business, organization, and globalization.
- The company plans to launch a new or facelifted model nearly every quarter in 2025.
- Expand hiring to over 6,000 new employees next year.
- XPeng 2025 will be the year XPeng’s internationalization strategy will be fully accelerated.
- Xpeng has already entered 30 countries and regions but intends to exceed 60 by the end of 2025.
While China is its home and most prominent market, XPeng’s CEO sees bigger plans for the brand on a global level. The 2025 goal to “fully accelerate” internationalization is step one in Xiaopeng’s strategy to achieve half of the company sales coming from overseas while becoming the number 1 Chinese mid-to-high-end NEV brand in sales share within the next ten years.
He Xiaopeng told staff that global expansion requires close collaboration between international and domestic colleagues in all departments to achieve said goals. In the letter, Xiaopoeng called XPeng’s strengths in unique products and adjacent technologies “ammunitions” that, when organized more systematically, will get XPeng through the 2025 elimination round and into China’s qualifying round.
All eyes are on 2025 as XPeng remains one of the key Chinese automakers to watch.
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