XPeng Inc. will change its Chinese name from “小鹏汽车” (XPeng Motors) to “小鹏集团” (XPeng Group) effective April 1, the company said in a Hong Kong Stock Exchange filing on Friday.
The change removes the character “汽车” — meaning motors or automobiles — and replaces it with “集团” — meaning group.
The company said that its English name XPeng Inc. remains unchanged. The stock code 9868 and English ticker are also unaffected.
The renaming reflects a company that has moved well beyond cars.
In the latest earnings call last week, XPeng‘s founder and CEO He Xiaopeng outlined plans to mass-produce humanoid robots, ship one million in-house AI chips, license autonomous driving software to Volkswagen, and launch a robotaxi service.
‘Physical AI’ as the New Identity
He described XPeng as being at a “historical inflection point” for what the company calls physical AI — a term it uses to encompass autonomous driving, robotics, and AI chip development.
On the Q4 2025 earnings call, he said the market potential for physical AI over the next five to ten years would be “even greater than that of the automotive industry.”
The company invested 9.5 billion yuan in R&D in 2025, of which 4.5 billion yuan went to AI.
That figure is set to rise to 7 billion yuan for physical AI-related R&D in 2026, all booked as operating expenditure rather than capital spending.
XPeng began construction of a humanoid robot mass production facility in Guangzhou in the first quarter.
The next-generation Iron robot is scheduled to enter mass production by the year end, with a target of monthly production capacity exceeding 1,000 units.
He has said annual robot sales could reach one million units by 2030.
Turing Chip and VW Partnership
Cumulative shipments of XPeng‘s in-house Turing AI chip have surpassed 200,000 units.
The company is targeting roughly one million chip shipments in 2026 and expects its entire vehicle lineup to transition to the Turing chip starting in the second quarter.
Volkswagen is the first external customer for both the Turing system-on-chip and XPeng‘s second-generation Vision-Language-Action (VLA 2.0) autonomous driving software — marking the first time a major Western automaker has adopted Chinese-developed AV technology.
He said on the earnings call that XPeng is open to working with additional automakers, AI companies, and Tier 1 suppliers.
Robotaxi
XPeng established a dedicated Robotaxi Business Unit earlier this month, with passenger-carrying demonstration operations planned for the second half of 2026.
He said the goal for early 2027 is to operate without a safety driver on board, using VLA 2.0 as the core technology.
The company believes the global markets for robotaxis and humanoid robots will each reach a scale of trillions of yuan.
Precedent
Companies including BYD, Geely, and Huawei’s automotive partners have built ecosystems spanning batteries, semiconductors, satellites, smartphones, and robotics.
XPeng‘s name change takes effect on April 1. The Chinese stock short name on the Hong Kong exchange will change from “小鹏汽车–W” to “小鹏集团–W” at 9:00 AM that day.
In its automotive business, the company has officially launched in Mexico this week, with its G6 and G9 SUVs.
He Xiaopeng said on X that the company has a three-year commitment to establish AI mobility leadership in Latin America by 2028.
