XPeng founder and CEO He Xiaopeng wants the world to know that his brand isn’t just an EV builder: it’s a “technology company that happens to manufacture cars”. Speaking at the global launch of the L03 SUV in Munich, He dropped his most explicit hint yet regarding North American ambitions: XPeng is fully prepared to cross the Pacific, set up shop in the United States, and erect factories on American soil, provided Washington relaxes its aggressively protectionist stance on Chinese imports. Of course, “if policy allows” is doing some heroic heavy lifting here.
Chinese-built EVs currently face a brutal tariff wall exceeding 100% in the US, thanks to a 100% Section 301 duty imposed in September 2024 stacked on top of existing levies, leaving precisely zero Chinese passenger cars on American showroom floors.
Naturally, while Washington keeps its door deadbolted, Ottawa is trying a different trick. According to Alex Tang, XPeng’s head of international development, Canada’s door remains wide open after Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu trekked to Guangzhou to hold talks with executives from XPeng, BYD, and GAC.
Under a bilateral framework launched in January, Ottawa ditched its 100% surtax for a friendlier 6.1% tariff capped at 49,000 units annually. By mid-July, nearly 38% of that quota was already snapped up, mostly in a hilarious twist of geopolitical irony by Elon Musk’s Shanghai-built Tesla Model 3s. But even the Canadian bypass route is fraught with drama, as President Donald Trump recently threatened a 50% tariff on Canadian exports, explicitly targeting the auto sector while Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney scrambled to defend CUSMA.
If North America sounds like a trade-policy soap opera, Europe is where XPeng prefers pragmatism over drama. Rather than wasting billions breaking ground on expensive greenfield sites, He Xiaopeng favors brownfield facilities and clever corporate co-parenting. XPeng has been quietly assembling its G6 and G9 SUVs with Magna International in Graz, Austria, since last September, and is actively courting the Volkswagen Group for shared manufacturing while scouting production locations in Southern Germany.
XPeng is more than willing to satisfy local-content regulations without doing a single percentage point extra. And why would they over-deliver? With 45,008 overseas shipments in 2025 across 65 markets and exports making up nearly a fifth of total wholesale volume, XPeng’s pragmatic global road trip is already running at full throttle.
