Available as either an EV or EREV, the L03 from China’s XPeng brings LLM vehicle voice controls and semi-autonomous driving.
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As Americans, we’re used to seeing cool cars we can’t get in other markets. Wagons, Japanese domestic market legends, and diesel variants are the usual crowd, but lately it’s been Chinese EVs. The newest forbidden fruit? The 2026 XPeng Mona L03, which we welcome you to think of as a smaller, compact SUV competitor to the Tesla Model Y .
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Founded in just 2014, XPeng has already launched numerous vehicles despite its young age. MotorTrend has gotten behind the wheel of a few, in fact, including the P7 , G6 , and G6 RWD Long Range . We walked away impressed. Although today’s story doesn’t involve driving the L03, it’s looking like it’ll offer the same level of build quality and standard equipment for a price starting around $40,000 in Europe and elsewhere.
We See Polestar, Porsche, and Ferrari
XPeng’s “Mona” moniker represents mainstream affordable cars, and the coupelike L03 SUV follows the M03 sedan. It’ll be the first SUV the automaker will launch in both the Chinese and European markets simultaneously and is on track to go on sale in 65 global markets this year.
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As a thing to behold, the L03 looks extremely sleek and futuristic. With body-flush door handles, Polestar-esque headlights, and a Porsche Macan EV -ish rear, there’s no black plastic cladding around the wheel arches to break up the smooth lines. Actually, it’s very nearly Ferrari Purosangue in silhouette, which makes sense because the SUV was designed under ex-Ferrari exterior design boss JuanMa Lopez. The purple you see in the photos is a production paint option, as well.
XPeng says the L03 has a drag coefficient of just 0.228, which is the same as the Model Y. With the right towing hardware, the SUV can reportedly pull up to 3,300 pounds.
Tons of Tech (and Cubbies) Inside
One thing it doesn’t share with Tesla is the stark minimalism of the Model Y’s cabin. Inside the L03, more than 250 ambient lighting colors set the mood against a 15.6-inch central display, 8.8-inch digital driver information screen, and 26.8-inch head-up display. Front seats get four-way power lumbar support, 14-point full-body massage, ventilation, and heating. The tri-passenger rear bench utilizes a 40/20/40 split and can adjust electrically up to five levels.
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Then there are also cubbies galore: a whopping 37 storage spaces in all. That includes the 3.6-cubic-foot front trunk (which drops to 2.4 cubic feet on all-wheel-drive models) and 0.35-cubic-foot rear pull-out drawer for the EV version, in addition to the 19-cubic-foot rear trunk. For context, the L03’s rear trunk is less than 1 cubic foot smaller than the Subaru Crosstrek ’s, a number due in part to its sloped roof design.
XPeng’s latest user interface and software suite, XOS 6.0, has been designed with a global audience in mind. Notably, the automaker claims it is the first Asia-Pacific OEM to integrate Google Maps natively—very interesting when the service is blocked by the Great Firewall of China. Other onboard tech includes parking aids (adorably identified as “European-tailored” in the press release, we assume because European parking spots are generally smaller than Chinese ones), and a driver monitoring system as standard. There’s also a built-in large language model for full vehicle controls via voice command.
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The Ultra versions of the L03 will be available with XPeng’s emerging VLA 2.0 system, its semi-autonomous technology that has Tesla’s Full Self-Driving squarely in its crosshairs. We’ve ridden in vehicles equipped with this tech before— you can read about it here —and the company says the system will be able to navigate complex urban environments while complying with local road laws. It’s also designed to acclimate to different driving behaviors.
Ultimately, VLA 2.0 is meant to be a full self-driving Level 4 system, but for now it has advanced Level 2 capabilities with the ability to upgrade over time. XPeng’s own in-house Turing AI chips power everything, which it says are faster than the Nvidia Orin processor found in other XPeng models.