Xpeng G6 review

It's brisk. Not quick, but as we'll see that's OK. It's not a car that invites you to melt its tyres.

The accelerator pedal is smoothly calibrated, so you can depart without yanking anyone's neck. The eco mode is good for gliding through town. Then there's normal and sport modes, each stepping upward in the vigour of delivery. Floor it and the 0-62mph time is 6.2 seconds. That's plenty, and because it's not a draggy car it'll keep going well above UK motorway limits.

The long-range version, because its battery can deliver more power, is slightly quicker to accelerate. But the standard range version's time of 6.6s is absolutely no disgrace.

And the handling?

Our issue is with the steering. It's sensibly geared and precise, with no particular slop. It doesn't induce messy body roll either. But the trouble is the weighting as you add lock. It has three different settings to choose from, but all have the same trouble. Once off-centre, the weight doesn't build up. So your hands interact with the car just by their position, not by the force they're working against. This feels unnatural and demands extra concentration, especially on quickish sweeping bends.

No doubt it can be sorted out by an over-the-air software update of the assistance calibration, but first Xpeng would have to recognise it's a problem.

The ride is pretty firm, which it doesn't need to be as this isn't a car you'd want to drive sportily. And actually, the damping allows the body to float a bit on big undulations.

Xpeng makes a lot of its assisted driving. How is it?

There are 29 sensors around the car, for assisted driving, parking, and safety warnings.

Engaging the cruise control with its lane changing capabilities gave us mixed success. The car certainly knew what it was doing – at least 97 per cent of the time. As with the Tesla models, the display shows the driver where other vehicles are positioned on the road, inspiring confidence and trust... usually.

But usually isn't really enough is it? On one or two occasions it dived off course. Still, it is never intended to be eyes-off; in 2025 no cars legally sold in Britain are such.

The calibration of the motorway lane assist is frankly annoying. Most cars act as a guide – the self-steering effect is gentle, building up as you veer to the edge of the lane so that you drive cooperatively with the car. The Xpeng's is like driving down a rail track. If you want to be slightly to the left or right of the position the car chooses, you really have to tug the wheel, making a jerky transition.

Oh and by the way, the car's course isn't very smooth anyway. It follows a jagged path. Xpeng claims it has been developed in the UK to work on narrow roads, irregular corners and in bad weather. We found it wasn't that great even in good weather.

Finally, the steering wheel controls for this system are counterintuitive. There isn't a normal pause/resume switch. And when the system is paused (by touching the brake) the speed variation roller reverts to being the cabin air temp control. Really.

At least it's fairly easy to use the screen to switch off the lane and speed limit assist – which also gets it wrong at times. As do, frankly, all cars.