XPENG picked its moment. With Volkswagen having just revealed the ID. Cross, the Chinese brand has shown the L03 for Europe with a German entry price just under 36,000 euros, and Autogefühl's Thomas argues that number is most of the story. For the money, the video reports, you get a 4.65 metre crossover, a 56 kWh net LFP battery, around 450 km of claimed WLTP range, and a standard equipment list that runs to ventilated front seats, a head-up display and a heated steering wheel. Step up to the 69 kWh pack and the claimed figure becomes 520 km for just under 39,000 euros. A range extender version sits alongside the fully electric cars. It is an uncomfortable pitch for anyone selling a smaller car for more.
The comparison Autogefühl makes directly is the one that stings: fully specced, it says, VW's ID. Polo and ID. Cross cost more than this, while the L03 is a much larger vehicle with more range. Put the numbers side by side and the gap is visible. Electrifying's walkaround of the production ID. Cross, covered separately today, quotes its larger 52 kWh pack at 271 miles or 436 km, a shorter figure than the L03 claims from a smaller battery. Size-wise, Autogefühl places the L03 against the Tesla Model Y and VW ID.4, a segment above where its price sits. The caveat a buyer should hold onto is that the L03 is new here, and a car is more than a spec sheet. Dealer coverage, servicing, residual values and how the software behaves in year three are what decide whether a cheap EV stays cheap. The video is a static premiere, not a road test.
The technical detail Autogefühl keeps returning to is charging. The L03 uses a 400 volt architecture rather than the 800 volt system of the larger G6, and peak DC charging is quoted at almost 240 kW on the bigger battery. Even so, the video says every version goes from 10 to 80 percent in about 20 minutes, which it credits to the shape of the charging curve rather than the peak. Drag is given as a Cd of 0.228. Acceleration is quoted at 6.6 seconds for rear-wheel drive with the big battery and 4.5 seconds with the optional front motor added. Pricing climbs to 42,000 euros for all-wheel drive and 47,000 euros for the Ultra, which adds 20 inch wheels and three extra chips for autonomous driving and self-parking. Inside, the video notes a 15.6 inch screen, physical dials for volume and driving modes, a 370 litre boot, and native Google Maps running on XPENG's own operating system alongside Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
The range extender is the version most likely to be misunderstood, and Autogefühl is careful about it. The car always drives electrically, it says, running on a 37 kWh LFP pack, with a 1.5 litre four-cylinder engine acting purely as a generator once the battery is depleted, fed by a 42 litre tank. The claimed figures are around 200 km on electricity alone and roughly 1,000 km in total. The rest of the detail in the video is the sort that usually costs extra elsewhere: frameless doors, a fixed glass roof with heat filtering and no shade, 50 W inductive phone charging with ventilation, three levels of seat ventilation on both front seats, and an animal-free steering wheel. Notably, the European car gets a separate digital instrument display that the Chinese version does without, because, the video says, European and US buyers still want one. Autogefühl adds that XPENG's head of exterior design is a former Ferrari exterior designer, which shows in a rear treatment it describes as almost Porsche-like.
Bottom line: the 47,000 euro Ultra is the least interesting car here. The one that matters is the 39,000 euro big-battery rear-driver, because it walks into a European showroom with more range, more space and more standard kit than things costing the same, and quietly asks the buyer to explain why not. XPENG's exposure is trust, not product. If the driving impressions land and the software holds up past year two, Volkswagen's problem is not that the L03 is cheap. It is that the L03 is not obviously worse.
Commentary on a third-party video. Figures and claims are as presented in the source and have not been independently verified. Spotted an error? Tell us and we will correct it.