E28 electric four-door sedan is set to make its public debut at next month's Shanghai motor show

Chinese electric vehicle start-up Xpeng Motors has previewed its second production model ahead of its planned public premiere at next month’s Shanghai auto show.

Known under the internal codename E28, the four-door sedan has been conceived to rival the Telsa Model 3 with contemporary coupe-like styling and an electric drivetrain that's claimed to provide it with a range of more than 500km on China’s NEDC-based tests.

Although the E28 is heavily concealed in the official image, Xpeng Motors says its key styling elements include a long wheelbase, a short front overhang, frameless doors, concealed door handles and a panoramic windscreen.

The fledgling company, formally known as Xiaopeng Motors, also says it will offer “superior driver-vehicle interaction and cutting-edge autonomous driving features to complement its performance and range”.

Speaking at the 2019 Nvidia GPU Technology Conference in San Francisco this week, Xpeng Motors' head of autonomous driving, Xinzhou Wu, said: “Our in-house operating system and proprietary autonomous driving software built on Nvidia's powerful Xavier chip make E28 the most advanced production model in terms of user interface design and intelligent features in the Chinese auto market today."

Xpeng Motors is yet to announce technical specifications for the E28’s driveline, but it is expected to draw heavily on that of the G3, an Audi Q3-sized SUV launched in 2018. That model is currently on sale in China with front-wheel drive but is planned to receive a four-wheel drive option later this year.

In its most potent form, the G3 develops 145kW and 300Nm, providing it with a claimed 0-100km/h time of 7.9sec. Elements of its 47kWh lithium-ion battery are expected to be carried over to the E28 with updated cell technology expected to provide it with the claimed 500km range.

Unlike the G3, which is produced under contract by Haima, a subsidiary of First Automobile Works, at its plant in Zhengzhou, in China’s Hanan province, the E28 is planned to be manufactured in XPeng Motors’ own production site in Zhaoqing in the province of Guangdong.

Founded in 2014, XPeng Motors has raised over 10 billion Chinese Yuan in funding to date. It is backed by a group of renowned Chinese companies, including Alibaba and Foxconn as well as IDG Capital and Hillhouse Capital, among others.