INTERVIEW
Xpeng eyes up fleet business with revised G6
Expertise with small brands will enable sales director Johnny Miller (right) to expand XPENG’s fleet activities.
Xpeng made its UK debut in early 2025, adding another Chinese brand to those from companies such as BYD, Geely and Chery. The importer is the Midlands-based IM Group and its first product was the G6, described by the company as an SUV, but with the five-door hatchback layout that has become familiar from other SUV electric rivals.
Xpeng’s Tesla Model Y rival has been overhauled just a year after its UK launch
Now just over a year on, the car has been comprehensively re-worked with a claimed more than 20,000 incremental engineering changes affecting charging, battery management, chassis, suspension, steering, noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) and software. In many ways it’s the pace of development that we are getting used to from Chinese manufacturers.
Johnny Miller joined the company at the end of 2025 as sales director, having previously worked at Genesis and Polestar. With 17 retail and some 24 aftersales outlets, with more to come, the company may not look like a traditional contender for fleet business. Miller’s experience with other small brands means he has built up know-how in driving fleet sales. “When I started at the end of last year, the business was obviously established regarding a network. Some of those were bigger dealer groups with fleet functions, so we knew we could lean on that, but there are other areas of the country where we didn’t necessarily have a fleet-specific retailer and there was very much more on a retail site bias,” he told FW.
“So I suppose what we’ve done in the last few months, while also getting ready now for the new G6 to hit the roads in the coming weeks, is to set up an infrastructure which allows both channels. Obviously, we don’t want to be agnostic regarding how a customer wants to own their vehicle.
“There are multiple channels for how they can do that. They can buy it outright from us, they can finance it, they can obviously contract hire and lease through our partner. Then if they’re a company car driver or a salary sacrifice customer and they want an Xpeng, we need to build the infrastructure that allows everyone to own and drive one, whether they physically own it or whether they are leasing it from a funder.”
This has meant that the company has been examining its internal processes to assess how it will work with the funders in their contract hire and leasing business to understand how they want to invoice and how things have changed from the traditional model. “There are other brands that I’ve worked for that have done it in a slightly different way,” says Miller. “We are going a little more traditional in that the retailer plays a very large part in this, so we will be utilising as many if not all of our retailers that we can. We’ll be working with them all for that local understanding, that handover moment.”
“I think there are lots of different channels in the fleet world. We want to grow organically, we want to grow naturally. We’re not going to go and buy business.”
As Miller points out, new fleet customers will probably be driving an Xpeng for the first time and may also be choosing an EV for the first time. The company will work with specific retailers who can lead the customer through how it works and build a relationship with them for when the vehicle needs servicing. “Then they have the security blanket of a retailer and a service site near them that could look after them,” says Miller.
Building the aftersales network will help to provide that security. “Under the IM group banner, the business has access to many different service centres through the different brands that we have in our portfolio,” says Miller. “We’ve picked and chosen which ones we want so we have national coverage. We’ve got 17 sales and after sales locations. That will grow into the major cities where we have open points today but we have an additional near 25 aftersales that are standalone and they are all over the country. So at any point within probably about 45 minutes’ drive, a vehicle will be able to get to one of those aftersales locations.
“I think there are lots of different channels in the fleet world. We want to grow organically, we want to grow naturally. We’re not going to go and buy business. We are going to look at what are the sustainable sales channels today.
“Part of my role and responsibilties, as I mentioned earlier, is to start working with the funders, the leasing companies. The bigger ones have their own corporate customers. I do think there’s a definite opportunity for us to go and work with them to position the G6 into that company car driver and user-chooser fleet because it’s the right size, it’s the right price, it’s the right range, it’s the right technology that I think people will want when they’re selecting the vehicle.
“We also believe there is a place for it in salary sacrifice. We know that is a booming and growing proposition today. We know again that the car sits nicely in that segment. So again there are lots of different sales channels to grow organically in them all.”
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