Xpeng X9 Pro (Long Range) Review: Big Car, Clever Thinking

What happens when a technology company builds a family car?

It’s an interesting question, because the answer usually isn’t something particularly interesting: You get a large box, seven seats, a mountain of equipment and a specification sheet that could double as light bedtime reading.

But the Xpeng X9 feels different.

At over five metres long, it is unmistakably a big MPV. Yet Xpeng has approached it less like a traditional people mover and more like a piece of technology that happens to carry seven people.

That philosophy becomes apparent almost immediately. The X9 isn't trying to make family motoring feel sensible - rather, it wants to make it feel luxurious.

The Inside Story

I’ll start with the obvious bit: Space.

The X9 offers three rows of seats, with enough room in the third row to avoid the usual seven-seater punishment of asking adults to fold themselves into origami shapes.

There's also a 721-litre boot, expanding to 2,554-litres with the seats folded flat. More importantly, the seats can be configured to suit what you're carrying, making the X9 feel less like a fixed seven-seater and more like a large, mobile storage system. And that is probably the more important achievement.

Family cars are rarely used in the configuration shown in the brochure. One day you're carrying seven people, the next you're carrying four people and enough luggage for a week away, and occasionally you're moving something that absolutely shouldn't fit into a car.

The X9 understands this, clearly.

Where things get more interesting is in the second row.

The X9 Pro Long Range's zero-gravity seats are exactly the sort of feature that sounds like marketing fluff until you actually use them. With ventilation and massage functions, they turn the rear cabin into something approaching a first-class lounge.

Then there's the entertainment hardware. A 27-speaker XOPERA audio system and rear entertainment provisions make the X9 particularly well suited to long journeys, where keeping passengers comfortable can be just as important as getting them there.

This is where the X9 makes a convincing argument for itself - it isn't simply spacious, it’s designed around the idea that passengers should actually enjoy the time spent inside it.And for a family MPV, that may be more valuable than another few tenths shaved off the 0-100km/h time.

Technology Wise

Of course, Xpeng couldn't build a car like this without throwing technology at it.

The X9 uses Xpeng's self-developed Turing AI chip and an enhanced suite of driver assistance and parking functions, while the cabin gets features such as a head-up display and split-screen Android Auto.

But the important distinction is that the technology, generally, feels like they are there to solve problems rather than simply to impress a spec sheet.

Parking assistance is particularly relevant in something this large. At over five metres long, the X9 isn't exactly the sort of vehicle you casually squeeze into a parallel parking space and forget about; that is where clever software and hardware start earning their keep.

And this is perhaps where Xpeng's identity as a technology company becomes most useful. The company has built its reputation around software and intelligent driving, and the X9 feels like an extension of that thinking rather than a conventional MPV with a tablet glued to the dashboard.

Big But Nimble

The funny thing about the X9 is that it doesn't feel quite as enormous from behind the wheel as its dimensions suggest.

The trick here? Making a very large vehicle feel manageable.

Rear-wheel steering helps reduce the amount of road the X9 needs to negotiate, making tight turns and parking manoeuvres considerably less intimidating than you might expect from something measuring around 5.3 metres long.

Efficiency is another pleasant surprise. During testing, consumption was around 15.8 kWh/100 km, with roughly 400 km of range still available. For something carrying this much mass and occupying this much road, that is a respectable result.

Again, the X9 isn't trying to be clever for the sake of it - its technology is there to make the business of operating a very large family car easier.

In A Nutshell

And perhaps that's what makes the X9 interesting.For years, buying a large luxury MPV has meant accepting a fairly traditional formula: Enormous cabin, lots of leather, plenty of equipment and a premium price tag.

The X9 takes that formula and adds something new.

It combines the practicality expected from a seven-seater with the comfort of a lounge and the technology you would expect from a company whose roots are firmly in the EV and software world.

These aren't three separate ideas fighting for attention - they complement one another. The X9 doesn't ask you to choose between practicality, luxury, and technology; its trick is making all three feel like they're part of the same product.

Perhaps that is what happens when a technology company builds a family car - you get a very big car.And in the case of Xpeng, that also includes some very clever thinking into it.

Technical Specification - Xpeng X9 Pro (Long Range)

Power/Torque: 342 bhp/450 Nm
Battery type/Capacity: Nickel Manganese Cobalt/110 kWh
Charging time: 7 hour 30 min (AC), 12 minutes (DC) - 10 to 80%
Range: 765 km (WLTP)
0-100 km/h: 8.2 seconds
Top speed: 200 km/h
Efficiency: 20 kWh/100 km
Agent: XPremium BEV Pte Ltd

Photos by Azfar Hashim (@azfar.talks)

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