New XPeng G6 AWD Performance 2026 review: upgraded and better, but still boring

Verdict

Can you improve an EV by making its battery smaller? It would seem so, as the updated XPeng G6 feels more convincing than the original version, and the rapid Black Edition model is verging on being desirable. The cabin quality has been improved, and the charging experience is remarkable. It just needs to be more fun to drive. 

XPeng is one of China’s younger car brands, having only been producing them since 2014. However, its ambitions are massive, and don’t merely encompass four-wheeled vehicles, but also artificial intelligence, humanoid robots and personal flying taxis. It’s a brand that wants to be taken seriously as a rival to the likes of Audi and BMW, never mind Tesla.

When the G6 electric SUV first arrived in the UK earlier this year, that might have seemed like over-ambition. It was a solid Tesla Model Y clone, but little more. But XPeng has already given the G6 an update, and while the tweaks seem small, they do add up. 

The biggest change is to the battery. Previously, the long-range, single-motor version of the G6 – which accounts for 80 per cent of UK sales – used an 87kWh nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) battery. Now, XPeng has improved that battery – by making it smaller. 

No, seriously, it has. The G6’s new battery is a lithium-iron phosphate pack (LFP), which means it’s potentially more robust and long-lived than the NMC item. It has also been given a massive boost to its charging speed. The previous G6 battery would charge at up to 280kW on a fast charger — the same as an Audi Q6 e-tron. This new battery manages up to 451kW. That allows XPeng to boast of a 10-80 per cent charge time of just 12 minutes.

You won’t find many — any, in fact — chargers in the UK capable of supplying 451kW, but there are 400kW chargers around, and 350kW Ionity chargers are practically common now. On one of those, a new G6 should go from 10-80 per cent state of charge in around 13-14 minutes. 

Charging speed is one thing, actual speed another and this is our first chance to drive the two-motor, all-wheel-drive Performance version of the G6. Its two motors develop 481bhp, and 659Nm of torque, so the performance boost over the existing 292bhp single-motor version is profound. The G6 AWD Performance covers the 0-62mph sprint in just 4.1 seconds, which is admittedly a step behind the Model Y Performance, but you’ll be pinned back so hard into your seat that you won’t notice the tenths of a second between them.

The XPeng G6 has been on sale in the UK for a while. You can currently lease one from £320 per month on the Auto Express Buy A Car service with prices for new cars at UK dealers starting from £40,000.

Anyway, the impressive thing here is range. Even with a long day’s drive that included a few spells at high speed on Autobahns near Munich, this XPeng G6 seemed capable of returning precisely its WLTP range figure — 316 miles — in real-world conditions. Combine that with its ludicrously fast charging and you’ve got quite a compelling package. 

If only the XPeng was as compelling to drive. It may have front double wishbone suspension, but the G6 still feels curiously inert. Smooth, certainly, even if at low speeds the springs and dampers fidget and jiggle a bit too much, but there’s neither feel nor feedback through the steering, and while the G6 is utterly competent and well planted in corners, there’s no actual fun to be had. 

There have been some improvements in the cabin, though. The overall layout of a 15.6-inch infotainment touchscreen, a 10.25-inch driver’s instrument display and no buttons bar the ones on the ovoid steering wheel remains essentially the same, but the dashboard itself now looks richer and is made of nicer materials, there’s more backlighting and the whole effect feels a bit more convincingly premium.

Space is excellent, front and rear, and the boot holds a reasonable 571 litres, but there’s no ‘frunk’ storage in the nose. There is now a digital rear view mirror, though, which is useful as the G6’s rearward visibility isn’t brilliant without it.

On the outside, there’s a new full-width LED light bar at the front, and at the back a new ‘ducktail’ style for the tailgate and a more prominent rear diffuser, too. 

The updated G6 won’t arrive in the UK until the early part of 2026, so there are no indications of pricing or specification as yet. That said, XPeng’s UK importer reckons prices won’t deviate all that much from where they are now, so that suggests a likely price tag of around £49,000 for this AWD Performance model, plus a little bit extra for the Black Edition. If so, that would undercut Tesla’s latest Model Y Performance by perhaps £10,000, and equivalent BMW and Audi models by much more. 

Suddenly, XPeng deserves to be taken very seriously indeed.