XPeng to launch urban NGP to 50-100 cities by 2023

Beijing (Gasgoo)- XPeng is working to launch urban NGP functions to achieve destination-to-destination autonomous driving in 50-100 cities by 2023, He Xiaopeng, CEO of XPeng, disclosed at the 2022 Guangdong-HongKong-Macao Greater Bay Area International Auto Show.

Autonomous driving technologies should break free from external supports like high-precision maps and the cloud to achieve true all-scenario autonomous driving, the CEO said. All scenarios should mean functional autonomous driving without GPS, in severe weather, across cities, and even across countries. 

Photo credit: XPeng

In an effort to achieve the goal, XPeng is working on urban NGP function at full speed. In mid-May, the startup completed the city road test of the engineering version NGP in Guangzhou. After it obtains approval for city high-precision maps, XPeng will immediately push its city NGP technology to users, and gradually expand to more cities. 

By 2026, the company aims to achieve “partial self-driving”, which is more complex than L4 autonomous driving. He Xiaopeng said that a new lifestyle might emerge in the 2025-2030 period, with high-level autonomous or crewless driving becoming reality in cities. For relatively long-distance trips in the 100-200km range across cities and provinces, people may rely on flying vehicles. 

Currently, XPeng has a team of roughly 700 people working on the integration of airborne and on-land transportations. The company’s autonomous driving team consists of nearly 1,500 people. 

Notably, the CEO of HUAWEI’s intelligent auto unit, Yu Chengdong expressed similar things during the auto show. Yu disclosed that HUAWEI is also actively strengthening its R&D investment in autonomous driving. The ICT giant currently has a massive team of six to seven thousand people working on autonomous driving, intelligent cockpit, electronic and electrical architecture, and V2X technologies.