Australia is being flooded with new car brands and while they attract many customers, others undoubtedly stay away because of the uncertainty associated with buying from an unknown brand.
This includes not only resale value, but also after-sales support, especially the availability of spare parts.
One of Australia’s newest brands – Xpeng – began delivering cars here in August 2024, and its local dealer TrueEV says it hasn’t always been smooth sailing for the Chinese brand.
“We certainly have some growing pains that we need to resolve from time to time. Inventory availability and parts availability are forever a challenge,” said TrueEV CEO Jason Clarke Daily Sparkz.
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“There’s just often different expectations. Again with a new brand, with our first delivery we had customers in Darwin and in Hobart and everything in between.
“Customers can rightly expect that a full supply of spare parts will be guaranteed in the event of a problem.
“So the challenge is to make sure you can achieve that, but it’s a very long way to get there and that’s because you’re… going from no cars on the road and no demand to 30 cars on the road and significant demand for various parts.”
Some new brands have worked to reassure skeptical customers by making public how they will ensure timely support.
GAC, for example, has touted its parts warehouse in Melbourne and its ability to quickly deliver repair parts and consumables, while Denza boasts that it will leverage its sister brand BYD’s existing parts supply infrastructure.
According to TrueEV, there may be variations in availability and timing for certain components.
“Delivery of parts and expected time may vary by type, so you may be OK for some parts and supplies but not others,” he said.
“The time delay is therefore literally the same day and can be up to six weeks, depending on whether it is possible to fly it out or ship it from China. However, we are seeing that this time delay is getting smaller and smaller.”
“As our footprint grows and all of our locations have a stock of parts and our service centers have a stock as well, the wait time decreases fairly quickly.”
TrueEV has partnered with Ultra Tune for both maintenance and roadside assistance. This allows the vehicles to be serviced across the network.
Such a partnership is crucial for a brand that doesn’t yet have a retail presence in all states and territories – in Xpeng’s case, the company has not yet opened locations in South Australia, the Northern Territory or the ACT, although these are in the pipeline.
TrueEV helps manage Xpeng parts supply through the fact that, at least for now, the brand only offers one model locally: the G6 midsize electric SUV.
“I think focusing on the G6 has been helpful for the brand,” Mr Clarke said.
“I think it helps consumers to see more than one model, so we would have liked to have seen more models sooner, that’s a bit out of our control. Obviously it was quite a hassle for us in the early days to quickly homologate vehicles and get them through the Australian design rules, but we’ve managed that with the G6.”
“Having more models creates more trust in the brand. It brings different types of consumers and a different distribution of consumers.”
More Xpeng models will come onto the market in 2026. In addition to an updated G6, the larger G9L SUV and X9 people mover will be joining local Xpeng showrooms next year.
However, don’t expect TrueEV to be distracted by other brands as it is said to be aimed exclusively at Xpeng.
“We regularly get asked if we would take on other brands because they like what we did for Xpeng, but no, we are exclusive to Xpeng and that helped us focus on that and we were responsible for all the marketing of the brand as a distributor and retailer,” he explained.
“So we’re sticking with it and making sure we can optimize Xpeng in the market.”
TrueEV says it has delivered over 2,000 Xpengs since the brand launched here in August 2024. The company does not currently report its sales to the Federal Chamber of the Automotive Industry or the Electric Vehicle Council, although this is expected to change.
“In short, we don’t have the authority to report (sales) yet. However, I think you will report it officially early in the new year,” Mr Clarke said.
The company also plans to expand its retail network from 18 locations to “at least” 25 by the end of 2026.
“We are very, very pleased with the performance and very pleased with the numbers,” Mr Clarke said.
MORE: Discover the Xpeng showroom
