A lot of people gave up on Twitter after it was taken over by a certain richest man and rebranded with the same letter, at the same time dumping all restrictions on it being used for calumny, racism and trumplies to mention just a few.
BY BRIAN BYRNE
X marks a place where most of us don’t want to go.
But X in this instance is for Xpeng, a car brand only established ten years ago.
That the guy who set it up is only a tad younger than the Muskman and also a tech billionaire may be coincidental, or maybe that just reflects the age we live in.
Anyhow, the G6 is a coupe SUV in style, in size targeting other electric cars such as the Tesla Model Y, BMW i4 and the Audi Q6 e-tron.
Super-smooth would be the first thing that comes to mind, with almost seamless curves all over.
For electric cars, aerodynamics are extra important in maintaining decent range at highway speeds, and Xpeng’s designers seem to have cracked this one with a Cd figure of 0.248.
For the non-engineers, that’s really good especially for what’s a big car.
Aesthetically the coupe SUV format can sometimes look odd, but with the G6 they have achieved to my eye a very pleasant form.
That super-smooth character is also evident inside the car.
Every attempt has been made to eliminate things on every surface which might interrupt a sleek finish, to the point that there are almost no buttons apart from ones that open the doors from inside instead of using pull handles.
The large centre screen dominates, and all adjustments are done between that and an unlabelled pair of roller-switches on the steering boss.
It’s unnerving when you have to ask the system how do you set the outside mirrors?
Equally, managing the climate and other systems via screen or voice doesn’t hack it for me.
Hope is on the horizon. Finally, the safety people have woken up to the distractive issues of screens reliance, and it’s now understood that driver reaction times while using them are worse than if they were drunk or high on drugs.
From next year, that’s going to be a part of the Euro NCAP crash test evaluations, to push carmakers back to using buttons and switches.
I’ll come back to that topic again.
Meanwhile, back with the G6, there is a driver instruments pod, so not all information is reliant on the centre screen.
The G6 is roomy, and despite the coupe roofline, there’s ample headroom even for lanky me in the back.
In smooth — oh, there’s that word again — artificial leather comfort.
Smooth can become bland, though, and that’s something which might be said of the overall inside experience of the G6.
However, that’ll be a matter of taste, I guess. There’s a good, big boot.
The 450 km rated range of the standard battery may realistically be 15-18 per cent less in the kind of driving most of us do, but I keep going back to the fact that you can start the day with a full ‘tank’ of energy, and most times you’ll never come near using that.
The network is improving — my local service area has got planning permission for a 20-car setup, which will mean that I don’t have to get up at 5am to nab a charging space.
The G6 will charge quickly too, 120 km of range can be added in five minutes with a fast charger.
The energy consumption is around 19kWh/100km.
Despite a weight of more than two tonnes, the car is a swift mover — push the pedal, and you’ll get to 100km/h in 6.7 s or so.
But for me, moving at a little more sedate level gave a very pleasant overall driving experience.
Among the techie gimmicks is a video monitoring of the exterior of the car while parked.
Any miscreant trying to interfere with it will not just get them a warning off, but also their faces will be retained in the system.
Not sure if there are GDPR or civil rights issues with that here, but it’s there anyhow.
For a car of the size, style, and finish, the cost is right on the button with the average price paid for a car in Ireland.
Yes, that’s going to raise your eyebrows — I’ll wager you didn’t expect that figure to be so high? Outside my wallet capacity, unfortunately, but there are lots of people apparently who can fork out that level of readies.
