Elon Musk says China leads the world in electric cars and green energy as XPeng CEO disagrees

The CEO of electric vehicle powerhouse XPeng had some humble commentary on Elon Musk's placating post that claims how "few seem to realize that China is leading the world in renewable energy generation and electric vehicles." "Whatever you may think of China, this is simply a fact," stated Musk on Tesla China's Weibo account, but the CEO of one of the main Tesla competitors in China begs to disagree.

According to the XPeng Chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng, the EV transportation and green energy industry is still in its infancy in China, too, and it will be at least a decade before it can lead "in the global market" as far as electric vehicles are concerned:

I don't know about renewable energy generation, but China is just at the forefront of the world in the electric vehicle sector. To lead the world, it is important to lead in the global market and win in business, in addition to leading in technology and products. To achieve these, at least 10 years of effort is needed. A decade ago, we had a similar feeling in mobile Internet, but once the real technology war started, China's global leadership in mobile Internet was not so high.

XPeng has a number of direct Tesla EV competitors, either released or upcoming, in its portfolio. It plans to release the new XPeng G9 SUV globally, after passing all the necessary crash and regulatory testing requirements. Its CEO got into a Twitter spat with Elon Musk back in 2020 when Musk accused XPeng of expropriating the software for its LiDAR-based autonomous transportation system.

Fast forward to today, and XPeng still uses LiDAR for the self-driving mode of its electric vehicles, including the upcoming G9 which is priced lower than the Model Y, while Tesla gave up on LiDAR for its Full Self-Driving system and relies solely on cameras.

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