Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
He Xiaopeng, the founder and CEO of the Chinese carmaker XPeng, welcomed on Tuesday Tesla’s rollout of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software in China.
“A warm welcome! The entire intelligent driving industry will see more interesting exchanges and mutual progress,” he wrote on the Chinese social media platform Weibo.
Tesla started rolling out an update (version 2024.45.32.12) in China, introducing the highly anticipated FSD software for city navigation. The update allows vehicles to navigate intersections and make lane changes based on traffic signals, speed, and road conditions — a major step forward in the path to the company’s goal of achieving fully autonomous driving.
XPeng’s chief executive said the company aims to, in the first half of this year, “conduct a comprehensive comparison between XPeng’s Turing AI driving system and the world’s most advanced high-level intelligent driving capabilities.”
The executive added that the brand aims “to be the best in China and globally in terms of functionality, performance, safety, and coverage.”
He Xiaopeng said both brands “are among the earliest companies in the world to apply large-model, end-to-end technology to intelligent driving and put it into mass production.” XPeng decided to ditch LiDAR technology less than a year ago, in July 2024.
The chief executive added that XPeng and Tesla “are also the only two companies capable of achieving intelligent driving without relying on high-definition maps or LiDAR, working towards a unified AI-driven solution that functions well globally.”
To achieve global assisted driving software, XPeng’s chief defends that they “must meet three key criteria” including “standardized hardware, free software, and frequent OTA updates for continuous growth.”
This year, the Guangzhou headquartered brand will “conduct global research and testing” with the CEO teasing the overseas launch of the brand’s assisted driving software for 2026.
As reported earlier this Tuesday, XPeng registered 8,800 vehicles in the week of February 17-23 in China, outselling Li Auto for the second consecutive time to become the best-selling new energy vehicle (NEV) startup in the country.
The figure marked XPeng’s fourth-best week on record, following 8,060 registrations in the prior week. The brand’s best weekly result was achieved in the final days of 2024 with 10,100 vehicles registered.
Over the weekend, XPeng shipped the first 300 units of its X9 multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) to Thailand. At the event in China, CEO He Xiaopeng said the company plans to launch its supercharging network in Hong Kong and Bangkok later this year, with further expansion planned for Europe and Australia.
XPeng said earlier this month that orders in the first week after the Chinese Spring Festival were 7.6 times higher than the same period in 2024.
