XPeng steps up for owners amid court battle

XPeng Australia has begun directly paying eligible customers the $5000 cashback they were promised under a previous distributor’s promotion, despite maintaining responsibility for the offer ultimately sits with TrueEV.

Speaking to Aussie journalists this week, XPeng Australia's national service development manager, Brenton Dalton, confirmed the factory-backed operation had established a dedicated process to assess outstanding claims.

He added that XPeng Australia – an extension of XPeng’s Chinese operation – was already making payments where customers could demonstrate eligibility.

“To hit the hard question, obviously cashbacks and things like that: first and foremost, I'll say that that was a promotional offer that was through the TrueEV distributor, through the TrueEV dealers at that time,” Dalton said.

“So I think the biggest thing for those customers would be … trying to clarify and get rectification through existing TrueEV dealers or through head office through some type of contact there.

“But any of those customers, any customer that’s out there with an X on the front of the bonnet, our commitment would really be to support them.

“So we’d open our customer care line to them. We very much welcome all customers to our customer care.”

He also said that where customers had exhausted other options, XPeng Australia would review claims individually.

“And look if that has failed and hasn't been successful for that customer? Absolutely [we can help]. On a case-by-case basis, we’ll get the documentation we need, i.e. evidence, contract of sales, and terms of conditions, and all that sort of stuff.

“Go through our process internally, we’ve set up actually a dedicated framework that we're triaging and putting customers through, or putting the documentation through.

“And once we've got that evidence, if that customer is entitled to it, yeah absolutely, we're paying – we’re paying for those [$5000 cashback entitlements].

“So on a non-admission basis or goodwill … we’re certainly supporting those [customers]. The key here is, the obligation is obviously with the other distributor, but we are stepping in on a case-by-case basis.

“We are actively paying for those now.

“I won’t talk volumes or anything like that, but we are regularly supporting customers out there with some success stories from the past. We’re working on ones right now, and customers are actually obviously very, very grateful for that.”

The comments come as XPeng continues rebuilding its Australian operation after terminating its five-year distribution agreement with TrueEV in January, despite three years remaining on the contract.

TrueEV entered receivership in March, with chief executive Jason Clarke previously saying the cashback promotion’s “commercial foundation” had been removed following the split, while noting that more than 80 customers had already received payment.

However, carsales understands up to 1500 customers may have purchased XPeng vehicles through TrueEV during the promotional period, meaning only five per cent or so of eligible buyers have received their promised $5000 cashback so far.

That leaves close to 1400 customers still waiting, either on TrueEV, XPeng’s goodwill process or the outcome of the Federal Court proceedings. Either way, it amounts to around $7 million.

XPeng Australia declined to comment on the specifics of the legal action when approached by carsales, instead stating the focus on its expanding dealer network and future product plans.

“We’ve just hit 23 dealers as of this morning. We were at 21, so we’re obviously onboarding dealers quite quickly, and the key there is that those existing customers that were sold [to] through TrueEV, there’s no divide, to be very clear on that,” Dalton said.

“So there’s different dealership networks, if that makes sense. Our commitment is that any customer, or basically any XPeng that’s out there in the market, is going to be supported through all 23 dealers. Which will obviously grow quite quickly as well.

“So those customers, be that service, repair, warranty, any type of work, the plan will be there filtering through that network.”

The dealer expansion comes as XPeng prepares to broaden its Australian model lineup.

The recently revealed Mona L03 is expected to arrive locally as the XPeng L03, with pricing tipped to fall in the low-to-mid-$40,000 bracket.

Industry sources also indicate the flagship XPeng X9 people-mover has been confirmed for Australia, with official confirmation expected next week, along with other potential models.

While XPeng Australia continues to distance itself from the legal dispute with TrueEV, it says its immediate priority is supporting existing owners and expanding its local footprint.

For affected customers, the cashback issue remains unresolved, but the company says eligible claims are now being processed through its dedicated assessment framework as the broader dispute heads to the Federal Court in October.

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