XPeng, is it currying favor with "pretty young girls"?

5,000 new vehicles sold out in just 3 minutes!

Yes, we are talking about the XPeng MONA L05.

This mid-sized smart electric SUV has a starting price of only 144,800 yuan, which is 25,000 yuan lower than the pre-sale price. There is an additional 5,000 yuan limited-time discount, which is roughly equivalent to an immediate 18% off the pre-sale price!

For a vehicle priced at over 100,000 yuan, such a significant price adjustment makes it easy to understand why the 5,000 available units were snapped up immediately.

XPeng's ambition goes far beyond that. Footage leaked after the MONA L05 launch event shows that He Xiaopeng, Chairman of XPeng Group, revealed that they aimed to hit 50,000 orders on the very night of the launch.

Judging from subsequent feedback, the MONA L05 is indeed a smash hit. The day after the new car was launched, multiple photos of crowded XPeng dealerships circulated online.

Up to now, XPeng's MONA series has launched 3 models, with total sales of the first two exceeding 360,000 units. The entry of the MONA L05 is expected to let the MONA series play a more important role in XPeng's product system.

And the MONA series' future product lineup is far more than these 3 models. Sources say XPeng is also developing a small SUV codenamed D11 and a station wagon codenamed D11T under the MONA line.

Why has the MONA series sold so well? Is the expanding presence of the series a good thing? Apart from sales volume, what else can it bring to the company?

#01

Catering to the young generation, low price is far from enough

The MONA series has more than just the L05 as a breakout hit.

While the number of confirmed orders for the MONA L05 is rushing to 50,000, the order backlog for the MONA L03 has stretched to 20 weeks later.

When it comes to the reason why the MONA series sells so well, many people will think of two words: cheap!

Indeed, whether compared with competitors or other series under the brand, the price of XPeng's MONA series is indeed relatively low. However, in the Chinese market, there are quite a few vehicles priced lower than the MONA series, but few can achieve such impressive sales results.

What matters more than price is the value the product can deliver.

Although the top-spec version of the MONA L05 is only priced at around 100,000 yuan, XPeng still packed premium configurations such as rear entertainment screen, zero-gravity seat, 1500 TOPS computing power, and DCC variable damping damper into the vehicle.

Apart from configurations, the XPeng MONA series has a more appealing selling point — intelligence.

Users under 30 years old account for more than 50% of the MONA series' customer base. To win over this group of young people who grew up in the era of explosive development of internet technology, the intelligent experience is undoubtedly XPeng's trump card.

During the Paris Motor Show in October, XPeng and Tesla were the only two automotive brands that participated in the official open-road assisted driving test ride experience of the exhibition. At the end of October, XPeng was approved for the smart connected vehicle application demonstration operation qualification in Guangzhou, and was allowed to carry out L4-level Robotaxi demonstration operation across the entire city of Guangzhou.

A series of events have made many consumers who have not test-driven the vehicles willing to believe that XPeng is in the first tier of automotive intelligence.

Of course, today's young generation also attaches great importance to emotional value.

XPeng often carries out promotion activities with Ouyang Nana, the "post-00s spokesperson", and expanded the MONA L05 launch event into a XPeng MONA WORLD owner gathering, inviting thousands of car owners to the launch site to have fun.

It can be said that the surprising price, premium configurations, technology label, and emotional value jointly build the value system of the MONA series.

#02

The explosive sales of MONA is a "double-edged sword"

During the 2026 Paris Motor Show, Wang Fengying, President of XPeng Group, said that starting from 2027, independent MONA dealerships will be set up in some cities, and in the future, "the possibility of making MONA an independent brand will not be ruled out".

New car launches, owner gatherings, Ouyang Nana as spokesperson, independent sales channels... Although the sales volume of the MONA series is getting higher and higher, XPeng is also spending more and more money on it.

If MONA really becomes an independent brand, the capital XPeng needs to invest in the MONA series will rise significantly. After all, independent operation is a systematic project involving multiple dimensions such as product line, team, channels and service system.

Then the question arises: is MONA worth it?

From a financial perspective, this question is very thought-provoking. Due to its positioning, the gross profit margin of MONA series products has long been at a relatively low level.

In the second quarter of 2026, the gross profit margin of XPeng Group's automotive business was 12.1%, down 2.2 percentage points from 14.3% in the same period of 2025. This is obviously related to the rising proportion of the lower-priced MONA series.

More importantly, the gains and losses at the brand level.

The increase in the proportion of MONA series sales will continuously lower the average product price of XPeng automobiles, and will also change consumers' perception of the XPeng brand, impacting the mid-to-high-end brand image previously established by the P series and G series.

The decline of brand image affects not only the present, but also the future.

How to restore or whether to restore the mid-to-high-end brand image? How to obtain higher profit margins to support the high-investment technology development that maintains the technology label? These will all become problems that XPeng has to face in the future.

#03

Trading profits for a stake in the future

Even though it may affect the brand image, XPeng still devotes a large amount of resources to the MONA brand without hesitation. It is likely that what they really want to get is never just sales volume, but the future!

As another cost-effective option focusing on the 100,000-150,000 yuan market, Leapmotor mainly targets family users in lower-tier markets, while MONA attracts more young people in first- and second-tier markets.

Attracting more young consumers is not a passive choice left to chance, but a result achieved through proactive moves: XPeng is working hard to cater to the young generation group.

Although previous public remarks about the older generation were somewhat controversial, it is undeniable that XPeng does attach relatively more importance to the needs of young consumers.

XPeng values young people not only because they are the main source of users, but also because they are the confidence to sustain investment in future technology development.

In addition to the already sold automotive products, XPeng is also deploying a series of future-oriented businesses that share the same technology path as smart electric vehicles, such as L4-level autonomous driving, flying cars, and humanoid robots.

These seemingly cool businesses are difficult to generate positive cash flow at the moment, but have huge room for imagination in the future.

Building a solid base of young fans now can be regarded as preparing the market in advance for future-oriented products such as flying cars and robots.

Young people have stronger interest in technology, stronger motivation to explore the future, and higher initiative to learn and spread new technologies.

XPeng's current efforts to attract these young people are conducive to building a more solid user base for new businesses on the one hand, and on the other hand, conducive to the positive communication of related businesses.

#04

Conclusion

The continuous increase in MONA sales allows XPeng to gain more favor among young consumer groups.

XPeng's strategy of catering to the young generation not only wins more sales for the present, but also wins more opportunities for the future five to ten years from now.

However, the development of an enterprise requires looking up at the distant horizon, as well as keeping its feet on the ground and moving forward step by step.

How to achieve a good balance between the present and the future, and between sales volume and profit, will be a topic that XPeng still needs to face for some time to come.

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "Auto Market Story" (ID: autostinger), written by Zhang Yuzhe, authorized for release by 36Kr.