Xpeng continues to use NVIDIA self-driving computing platform for next-generation smart EVs

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Xpeng Motors, a Guangzhou-based electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer, announced on April 16 it will continue to use NVIDIA’s AI-enable autonomous driving computing platform in its next-generation intelligent BEV models.

The Xpeng P7, the all-electric sports sedan set to hit the market on April 27, will be the company's first production model powered by the NVIDIA DRIVETM AGX platform, which boasts high-performance energy-efficient Xavier system-on-a-chip (SoC) that can deliver 30 TOPS (trillions of operations per second) of performance while consuming only 30 watts of power.

According to Xpeng Motors, Xavier is the first production-level SoC dedicated to autonomous driving that meets current safety standards and regulation.

The startup touts the super-long NEDC range of 706km of the P7. The vehicle is equipped with 12 ultrasonic sensors, 5 high-precision millimeter-wave radars, 13 autonomous driving cameras and one in-car camera with HD map feature. According to Xpeng, the upcoming sedan features Level 3-ready full-scenarios autonomous driving functions for highways, urban roads and valet parking befitting China’s particular traffic conditions.

Xpeng Motors starts its strategic cooperation with NVIDIA, the world's leader in AI computing, and its China partner Desay SV in November 2018 to jointly develop Level 3 autonomous driving technologies. Powered by Xavier, the EV maker would independently develop the software and user scenarios for China's typical traffic environment.

Based on NVIDIA's AI infrastructure, Xpeng has developed some self-owned closed-loop self-driving technologies like deep neural networks. By virtue of the open NVIDIA DRIVE OS, the automaker runs its proprietary autonomous driving software, XPILOT3.0, inside the vehicle, and performs continual OTA (over-the-air) updates (photo source: Xpeng Motors).