Chinese carmaker XPeng informed internal staff that it has appointed a new head of its Autonomous Driving Center after Li Liyun switched to another role within the company.
According to an internal letter sent out to employees on Thursday, first revealed by local media outlet LatePost, Liyun will step down from the role of head of the center after two years, with Xianming Liu assuming the role.
Liu is responsible for the company’s World Foundation (Visual Language Action) Model, an advanced AI system focused on autonomous driving.
Unveiled in April, XPeng described the World Foundation Model as far more advanced than traditional vision-language-action (VLA) models, featuring 35 times more parameters.
Liu joined XPeng in March 2024, as head of its AI team. According to his LinkedIn page, he works as a Senior Director of Engineering for the company.
Earlier this year, the executive, which reports directly to XPeng‘s founder and CEO He Xiaopeng, was assigned the head of the VLA model development.
Xianming Liu is a Doctor in Electric and Computer Engineering, from the University of Illinois. He is a former Facebook (Meta) employee and has also worked for Cruise, General Motors’ autonomous driving subsidiary.
Liu’s AI research has played a key role in supporting the software development for both the chip and embodied AI teams.
It includes the Turing AI chip — integrated in the recently launched G7 SUV and the new P7 sedan — and the humanoid Iron, currently under development.
Approached by LatePost, XPeng said its Autonomous Driving VLA model is a key application of the World Foundation Model.
Going forward, Liu will lead the team to speed up the deployment of XPeng‘s physical-world foundation AI model across the automotive field.
Xianming Liu replaces Li Liyun, which will remain at the company. However, the automaker did not reveal what role he will be responsible for, as of Friday.
Li is a Doctor in Computer Science from New York University, who has worked at AT&T, LinkedIn, Baidu, and JD.com.
He joined XPeng‘s intelligent driving R&D team in June 2019 and has held several key positions, including head of software for the Highway NGP and Urban NGP.
In August 2023, Li Liyun took over as head of XPeng‘s autonomous driving team, replacing Wu Xinzou, who had left to join Nvidia, after He Xiaopeng publicly stated that he was leaving the company for “family and other reasons.”
At the time, Li was serving as head of the Planning & Control Department.
Earlier this week, CarNewsChina reported that Volkswagen will be integrating XPeng’s autonomous driving software starting in 2026.
The two companies have partnered with XPeng in 2023 to jointly develop vehicles for the Chinese market.
The report said the first model to feature the AD software will be a mid-size SUV and that VW is already testing XPeng‘s XNGP on the upcoming EV.
