XPeng Eyes European Rollout of Self-Driving Tech

Chinese automaker XPeng is forging ahead with plans to roll out its self-driving technology beyond its home country.

At the Beijing Auto Show, chairman and CEO Xiaopeng He shared footage of an XPeng model demonstrating its hands-off Navigation Guided Pilot (NGP) Advanced Driver Assistance System on public roads in Germany.

He told the assembled audience at the XPeng press conference: “We recently conducted a test of XPeng’s autonomous driving technology on the highways in Germany and we have made significant adjustments over the past two years to achieve efficient globalization and localization, something that no other Chinese and global manufacturers have done so far.”

The footage underscored a recent post he made on LinkedIn in which the CEO claimed that the tech was “nearly road-ready for Europe.”

He wrote: “Extensively tested in China, our ADAS software has proved that it can smoothly operate abroad, another step towards our goal of making advanced smart driving accessible worldwide.”

The Chinese rollout of the most recent iteration of XPeng’s ADAS tech, XNGP, which incorporates functionality on highways and city roads, has been dramatic, with 259 cities now covered.

Obviously, any European introduction would be subject to regulatory approval, and with the European Commission currently looking into the thorny topic of the proliferation of Chinese EVs generally, it is being reported that XPeng would consider producing vehicles outside its home country if necessary. 

Related:Flying Car Featured at CES; Pre-Orders Starting This Year

The video was just one highlight of a packed presentation at Beijing which illustrated how the ambitious Guangzhou-based company aims to position itself as a world leader in the field of AI-led mobility.

“The next decade will be a ‘golden decade’ of smart vehicles,” he said. “The core of smart vehicle advances is how to operate with automative software adoption emerging as the new industry norm. Looking ahead, XPeng will roll out the on-road testing of AI-powered functions integrated into XPeng models.”

Among a string of announcements, He confirmed the launch of a new AI-driven sub-brand of electric cars in June, which will be named MONA (Made of New AI).

There was also confirmation that the company’s X9 MPV-cum- SUV will receive several new AI-powered innovations. These include XPeng’s new Tianji operating system – claimed to be the industry’s first OS to integrate AI tech into both smart cockpit and smart driving functionality.

The X9 features enhanced “Surround Reality” perception capability plus sees the introduction of the previously announced AI Valet Driver, which learns and memorizes routes during manual operation and then provides automated assistance when driving them in the future. The tech works even without the availability of XNGP, and up to 10 routes of 62 miles can be stored.

Related:XPeng Announces Self-Driving Breakthroughs, Unveils New Car

XPeng also said it was set to deploy the industry’s “first mass-produced 2K pure visual neural network large model in vehicles.” Effectively a reliance on pure vision, this will utilize more than 2 million high-definition grids to reconstruct the world around XPeng vehicles, ensuring surrounding objects are identified immediately.

And following the announcement at CES that pre-sales of the XPeng AeroHT Land Aircraft Carrier modular flying car would get underway this year, it was revealed at Beijing that these would start in Q4.