CarBrandLogos archive · Li Auto · 2022

Li AutoLi Auto L8

The six-seat family SUV that replaced the car which built the company.

Photo: Zotyefan · CC BY-SA 4.0

The story

A defining chapter in Li Auto history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Li Auto L8, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

The L8 arrived in 2022 as the direct successor to the Li One, keeping the same fundamental idea: a mid-size luxury SUV driven entirely by electric motors, with a petrol engine on board acting only as a generator to top up the battery on long journeys.

Li Auto L8 005 · JustAnotherCarDesigner · CC BY-SA 4.0

Design and engineering

What changed was the presentation. The four-screen dashboard of the One gave way to a cleaner layout with large displays for driver and passenger and a separate screen for the second row, and the six-seat cabin was reworked around the middle-row captain's chairs that Chinese family buyers had made a requirement rather than an option.

2023 Lixiang L8 · User3204 · CC BY-SA 4.0

In production

It slotted into the middle of a three-car range, below the larger L9 and above the five-seat L7, all sharing engineering and much of their interior architecture. That strategy, a small number of closely related models covering adjacent slices of the same market, is unusual and has worked: the L-series made Li Auto one of the few Chinese electric-vehicle startups to report sustained profits.

2023 Lixiang L8 · User3204 · CC BY-SA 4.0

At a glance