Tesla has revealed its new Model Y with a revamped design in China and many have pointed out that it looks remarkably similar to Xpeng’s P7, which is curious because the Xpeng itself was a Tesla copycat in its early days.
It goes full circle.
Henry Xia, who founded Xpeng in 2014, brazenly admitted that he influenced through Tesla and the automaker’s announcement that its patents were open source.
This will be the first company to dedicate Tesla to the free use of its patents.
But things took a turn for the worse from there.
Xpeng went beyond just taking inspiration from Tesla and its somewhat open patents. It copied Tesla’s Autopilot and cluster user interface:
Tesla also subsequently filed a lawsuit against Guangzhi Cao, a former Autopilot engineer who resigned to sign up for Xpeng’s self-driving team. The automaker accused the engineer of stealing Tesla’s Autopilot source code for Xpeng.
The lawsuit was settled in 2021. Xpeng is not a party to the lawsuit and said its own driver-assist features depended on internal development.
But Xpeng hasn’t stopped copying Tesla there. The Chinese company shamelessly copied Tesla’s 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 Xpeng’s P7+ and other vehicles in the Chinese EV automaker’s lineup.
It has the same 3-section light bar and very soft lights that come 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 “paying tribute” to Xpeng’s design with the new Model Y refresh:
In 2019, Xiaopeng P7 brought a trend of front cross lights to the entire industry. In fact, this set of answers was designed through us in 2018 and has since been used as Xiaopeng’s DNA and identity. It still receives tributes today from brands like Tesla and LX.
Just before Tesla’s unveiling of the new Model Y, Xpeng shared the first official photographs of its new G7 SUV, which features a front end:
Tesla never copies anything. He invents everything he does and is the first to move. Anyone who turns out to have been before Tesla is only there because they used a time device (of course invented through Tesla) to insert themselves before Tesla. . .
Xpeng saw its vehicle deliveries increase by as much as 34% in 2024, compared to a 1% decline for Tesla. The G7 also ranks as one of the main competitors to the Tesla Model Y in China, which is its largest market.
The circle is still complete. There’s no doubt that Xpeng has copied Tesla in the afterlife, and while I can’t verify that Tesla copied Xpeng here, it seems incredibly likely to me.
Xpeng has done very well with its lineup in China this year and now the G7 is a serious festival for Tesla’s main income: the promotion of Model Y cars in China.
Is Tesla getting nervous?
Fred is an editor and senior editor at Electrek.
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