XPENG Motors: Tesla’s Closest Counterpart Among EV Startups in China (Part 1)

In October, XPENG set a new monthly delivery record, with a total of 23,917 new vehicles delivered. Among them, the XPENG MONA M03 surpassed 10,000 units in deliveries for two consecutive months since its launch.

Xiaopeng HE；Photo Credit: Screenshot of live broadcast

Hi, welcome to Gasgoo. In this episode of "Wheels of Change: Stories of Chinese Auto Giants," let's talk about XPENG, a company known for its expertise in intelligent driving technology.

XPENG Motors Makes a Splash with Successful IPO

In 2004, He Xiaopeng ventured into internet entrepreneurship by founding UCWeb. A decade later, he sold the company to Alibaba, seeing his personal fortune soar to 33 billion RMB. After re-evaluating his life, he realized that financial freedom was not his only pursuit. This science geek, a computer science graduate from South China University of Technology, firmly believed that technology should be the foundation of his existence. Thus, he made a pivotal decision in his career: to enter the new energy vehicle (NEV) industry, leveraging his pragmatic spirit to create an EV enterprise with “He Xiaopeng gene”.

He Xiaopeng then turned his attention to the automotive company co-founded by Xia Heng, He Tao, and Yang Chunlei in 2014. This company, where He Xiaopeng initially served as an angel investor, later becomes the predecessor of XPENG Motors.  

In August 2017, He Xiaopeng officially joined XPENG Motors, transitioning from investor to chairman. That year, XPENG experienced rapid development, establishing a ten billion production base in Guangdong Zhaoqing and completing a 2.2 billion RMB A-round financing led by Ucar Capital.

In October 2017, XPENG’s first mass-produced model rolled off the assembly line, taking the lead in the Internet car-making industry to achieve mass production. This indicated that XPENG had completed a comprehensive layout from R&D to production, sales and after-sales service.

XPENG thus became the first internet car company in China to obtain product announcement approval from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and achieve mass production. This production capability not only shattered the rumors of “PPT-driven automotive hype” but also attracted investment from Alibaba by the end of 2017.

January 2018 was also significant for XPENG. That month, XPENG delivered 39 new cars, becoming the first internet car manufacturer to enter the China Passenger Car Association's sales rankings for NEVs. It also globally unveiled the XPENG G3 at the CES in the U.S.

Later that month, it announced a 2.2 billion RMB B-round financing, co-led by Alibaba, Foxconn and IDG Capital.

After completing the B-round funding, XPENG had raised over 5 billion RMB in the capital market.

From then on, XPENG accelerated its fundraising efforts. In 2019, the company completed a $400 million C-round financing with backing from investors including Xiaomi Group.

According to incomplete statistics, from 2017 to 2020, He Xiaopeng participated in over four rounds of financing for XPENG in his personal capacity. Whether in terms of funding scale or frequency, XPENG is ahead of other new automotive forces in China during the same period.

On the evening of August 27, 2020, XPENG officially listed on the New York Stock Exchange, with a valuation of $10.8 billion. The stock price soared over 60% on opening, making it the highest-valued company among Chinese new car companies at that time.

Then, in July 2021, XPENG went public on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. With this dual listing, XPENG established a solid financial foundation for its future development.

XPENG listed in U.S. Photo Credit: XPENG

Expanding the "Friends Circle"

With funding secured, it's essential to remain grounded and deliver results to reassure the capital markets.

In XPENG's automotive landscape, every segment relies on the support of numerous industry partners. These companies, which collaborate with XPENG to expand their business, form a broad "Friends Circle".

1. Complete Vehicle Production:

In the early stage of Chinese NEV industry, a major standard to measure the strength of a vehicle enterprise is to truly achieve mass production and delivery.

In July 2017, the first model of XPENG began production through a contract manufacturing partnership with Zhengzhou Haima Automobile. By October of the same year, XPENG’s first batch of mass-produced vehicles rolled off the assembly line at Haima's manufacturing facility in Zhengzhou. This marked a significant breakthrough for the new start-ups in car-making,  signaling XPENG's ambition to ramp up production and prepare for a public listing.

However, "Contract manufacturing" was only a temporary solution. In May 2017, XPENG announced plans to invest 10 billion RMB in building a factory in Zhaoqing of Guangdong Province. The project was divided into three phases, with the first phase involving an investment of 4 billion RMB, aiming for an annual production capacity of 100,000 vehicles, with the entire facility expected to be operational by 2019.

In 2020, the Phase II project of XPENG Zhaoqing facility began construction. After the completion of the project, the annual production capacity of Zhaoqing manufacturing base reaches 200,000 vehicles.

In January of 2024, the Zhaoqing facility underwent renovations to prepare for the production of new models, accelerating the ramp-up of XPENG's production capacity and sales.

2. Complete Vehicle Sales

In June 2017, UCAR Group announced the establishment of its fourth major division—Ucar Capital—and disclosed its first strategic investment of 2.2 billion RMB in XPENG. At that time,  Xia Heng, then president of XPENG, revealed that UCAR had over 80 stores in Beijing and a presence in more than 280 cities nationwide, which could help XPENG quickly penetrate the market.

3. Intelligent Driving

Intelligent technology has always been the main advantage of XPENG.

In May 2017, XPENG partnered with Guangzhou Haige Communications Group to utilize 20 centimeter high-precision Beidou navigation for its smart vehicles. At that time, XPENG's intelligent driving was still at Level 2.5, with plans to start with low-speed scenarios and gradually expand to high-speed applications. High-precision map navigation was expected to provide mapping and positioning information for decision-making at every stage of the autonomous driving development process.

In June 2017, XPENG signed a strategic agreement with Bosch to collaborate on autonomous driving, aiming to accelerate the evolution and implementation of XPENG's autonomous driving features.

In June 2018, XPENG signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Desay SV, working together to develop an L3-level autonomous driving system. This made XPENG the first Chinese automaker to reserve Desay SV's latest autonomous driving domain controller.

Signing ceremony of strategic cooperation between XPENG and Desay SV; Photo Credit: XPENG

At that time, the controller hardware which they collaborate on was equipped with world-class autonomous driving chips, offering leading computing and processing capabilities to support the development of XPENG's autonomous driving algorithms and systems.

In April 2020, XPENG partnered with NVIDIA, continuing to equip its smart electric vehicles with NVIDIA's AI autonomous driving computing platform. Based on NVIDIA's AI infrastructure, XPENG developed its fully closed-loop self-developed autonomous driving technology, including deep neural networks.

Within the vehicle, NVIDIA DRIVE OS enabled XPENG's patented autonomous driving software, XPILOT 3.0, to realize its full potential and continuously enhance its autonomous driving capabilities through OTA updates.

In November 2020, leveraging the world’s largest high-precision spatiotemporal service network of Qianxun SI, the XPENG P7 achieved impressive spatiotemporal perception capabilities, with vehicle positioning accuracy reaching centimeter-level. On highways covered by high-precision maps, it enabled NGP (Navigation Guided Pilot) for autonomous navigation and driving, providing users with an intelligent travel experience.

4. Charging Infrastructure:

At the end of 2019, XPENG signed a contract with NIO Power to cooperate on charging services. Additionally, in the charging sector, State Grid Corporation of China, China Southern Power Grid, TELD New Energy Co., StarCharge, and Xiaoju Charging are all partners of XPENG.

As of now, XPENG's charging system includes 7 kW and 11 kW home charging piles, 20 kW DC fast charging stations, S2 180 kW DC supercharging stations, and S4 480 kW ultra-fast charging stations.

As of February 2024, XPENG's charging network has accumulated over 1 billion kWh of charging energy and surpassed 30 million charging times. Furthermore, XPENG has established over 1,100 self-operated charging stations and more than 5,300 charging piles, covering over 400 cities and providing over 2,200 charging stations with free benefits for car owners.

XPENG plans to establish 3,000 ultra-fast charging stations by the end of 2025, 5,000 ultra-fast charging stations by the end of 2027, and to have 10,000 self-operated charging stations and 4,500 S4 liquid-cooled ultra-fast charging stations in place by 2026.

Starting from Intelligent Driving

Intelligent Driving has been a core label since the inception of XPENG.

Particularly after He Xiaopeng joined the company, he introduced a strategy focused on technology-first and independent R&D, empowering the vehicles through software and algorithm upgrades.

At the beginning, over 90% of XPENG's team members were technical staff, primarily from renowned automakers like GAC, BMW, Lamborghini, Ford, and PSA, as well as major automotive parts suppliers like Delphi, and tech companies such as Samsung, Huawei and WeChat.

Looking at the leadership change of XPENG's autonomous driving R&D team, we can divide its autonomous driving development into seven stages.

At initial stage, the highlight is smart parking.

This phase was led by Xiao Zhiguang, then Senior Director of Autonomous Driving Product Development at XPENG and head of smart parking. At that time, XPENG's domestic autonomous driving team consisted of nearly 30 people, developing features like fully automated parking and automatic following. This stage was more like that of a traditional Tier 1 supplier tackling the challenges of parking functionalities.

In April 2018, XPENG unveiled its G3 all-scenario automatic parking technology: XPILOT 2.0, utilizing 20 sensors for visual functions to achieve automated parking, mainly addressing the last-mile driving challenge.

By the end of 2018, XPENG brought the G3 to the market. This vehicle introduced all-scenario intelligent parking through the fusion of visual sensors and ultrasonic radar, solving the parking difficulty faced by novice drivers. It is G3’s function of automatic parking that has branded XPENG as a leader in intelligent technology, making it one of the closest competitors to Tesla in China.

During this stage, XPENG's R&D team of autonomous driving gradually increased emphasis on software. In 2019, Xiao Zhiguang once noted that XPENG’s autonomous driving team had grown to 300 people, with 70% being software engineers. By 2021, the parking team of XPENG had expanded to over 150 people, including more than 100 focused on software algorithms.

Considering the team size for parking functionalities at that time, XPENG's investment in this area might have been the largest among Chinese automakers.

The second is evolution stage, during which XPENG's assisted driving technology gradually develops.

When the team was tackling parking challenges, He Xiaopeng also began planning to establish another autonomous driving R&D team in Silicon Valley to accelerate technological development.

In August 2017, He recruited Gu Junli as Vice President of Autonomous Driving R&D. Dr.Gu brought extensive experience from companies like Google and AMD, where she worked on software engineering and AI research. Additionally, Gu has previously worked on Autopilot development while at Tesla.

During her tenure at XPENG, Gu established a research team Xmotor.ai in Silicon Valley, leading the development roadmap for XPilot and the autonomous driving system architecture for the XPENG P7, while enhancing the company's capabilities in data collection and cloud infrastructure.

In addition, Collaboration with external partners also effectively advanced intelligent driving initiatives of XPENG.

In June 2018, XPENG and Desay SV officially signed a strategic cooperation agreement in Guangzhou. Their collaboration on the autonomous driving system aimed to deliver three core automated driving functions: low-speed valet parking, mid-speed traffic jam assisted driving, and high-speed autonomous driving.

From this stage, XPENG began its gradual evolution.

At The Third Stage, voice interaction in cockpit became a selling point for XPENG.

Since 2020, XPENG has had the industry's first fully voice-activated in-car system. The intelligent voice assistant, “Xiao P” , not only features accurate recognition and quick response but also enables advanced interaction capabilities like continuous dialogue, semantic interruptions and high-precision voice control.

Zhao Hengyi, who once led voice technology at XPENG, said in an interview that XPENG’s voice technology was developed in collaboration with AISpeech. XPENG initially built the framework, utilizing AISpeech's technology for voice wake-up and recognition. Some basic functions such as phone calls, check the weather and voice synthesis are also using technologies from AISpeech. Core functions like semantic parsing and interruptions, recognition enhancement and natural language processing were developed in-house.

In 2020, XPENG was the first to introduce the "full-scene voice" feature and capabilities like "continuous dialogue" and "speak-when-you-see," significantly enhancing in-car interaction efficiency. In October of the same year, XPENG updated the voice system in the Xmart OS 2.1.0 for P7 users, allowing drivers to control navigation, music, and cabin temperature using voice commands, a cutting-edge implementation at the time.

In the fourth stage, XPENG upgraded its assisted driving technology.

In March 2019, Wu Xinzhou was appointed as Vice President of Autonomous Driving at XPENG, responsible for the technical roadmap planning, business and team management for both the U.S. and China markets. From this stage on, XPENG's autonomous driving began to take shape.

Before joining XPENG, Wu spent over a decade at Qualcomm, leading an autonomous driving R&D team dedicated to solutions based on computer vision, deep learning, precise positioning and sensor fusion.

In 2020, XPENG launched the full-stack self-developed NGP high-speed autonomous navigation and driving. At that time, XPENG became the second company in the world and the first in China to develop autonomous driving technology based on an open computing platform, following Tesla.

Then, Wu said that XPENG has the ability to independently develop all algorithm modules, particularly in visual perception.

In the fifth stage, XPENG's autonomous driving technology gets on track and begins to catch up with Tesla, showcasing the charm of its chips.

Wu's participation also brought chip support to XPENG’s development of autonomous driving.

In April 2019, Tesla announced its Hardware 3.0 system, highlighting its self-developed FSD chip instead of NVIDIA's chip. The FSD chip boasts a computing power of 72 TOPS, which Musk claims is the world's most advanced computer designed specifically for autonomous driving.

Meanwhile, in the same year, Wu began recruiting two groups of talents—one from Qualcomm and another from the pool of Chinese tech engineers.

Among them were Parixit Ahera, the former Qualcomm CR&D software director, Benny Katibia, who led Qualcomm’s ADAS chip design, former Drive.ai co-founder Wang Tao, LinkedIn tech lead Lin Yishu, and Li Liyun from Baidu Apollo, who would later succeed Wu in XPENG's autonomous driving efforts.

The XPENG P7 targeted Tesla Model 3, yet utilized NVIDIA's Xavier chip with only 30 TOPS of computing power. The outstanding autonomous driving capabilities of P7 were largely attributed to the algorithms developed by Wu's team.

Additionally, following Wu’s arrival, XPENG integrated NVIDIA's Xavier chip into Desay SV’s autonomous driving domain controller for AI computing and processing, while leveraging Infineon's Aurix MCU for safety functions like AEB. The autonomous driving software relied on BlackBerry's QNX and NVIDIA’s driving software.

By the end of 2022, the XPENG G9 was equipped with two NVIDIA Orin chips, achieving a computing power of 508 TOPS. From the G9 to the 2023 XPENG G6, XPeng's intelligent driving capabilities gradually shifted from low-speed parking to more intelligent commuting, gaining market recognition.

In this stage, XPENG learned to leverage advanced chips to integrate autonomous driving technology with its vehicle products.

In the sixth stage, XPENG's autonomous driving system evolves from NGP to XNGP.

In August 2021 at Tesla’s AI Day, the head of Tesla Autopilot Andrej Karpathy introduced the BEV+transformer algorithm into the autonomous driving. This technology enables autonomous vehicles to observe road conditions like humans, without relying on LiDAR and other sensing components.

This innovation brought a great shock to Chinese automakers at that time. In the second half of 2021, XPENG decided to independently develop driving assistance algorithms without relying on high-precision maps, leading to the creation of XNGP.

XNGP is the second-generation intelligent driving assistance system following XPILOT, developed by Wu's team. It introduced a new perception architecture, XNet, enabling all-scenario intelligent driving assistance with just two NVIDIA Orin X chips.

In 2023, XPENG’s XNGP entered mass production. In November of the same year, XPENG fully launched its map-free urban navigation feature. By January 1 of 2024, the total number of cities covered by XPENG XNGP reached 243, far ahead of the competitors.

In the seventh stage, XPENG transitions from software-defined vehicles to AI-defined vehicles.

From the second half of 2023, Li Liyun succeeded Wu Xinzhou as the new head of autonomous driving at XPENG. At the same time, the "AI chauffeur" feature became another strong asset for XPENG's intelligent driving. He Xiaopeng stated that the organizational shift toward AI would transform XPENG from a software-defined to an AI-defined automaker.

During last year’s Technology Day, XPENG announced nine key achievements, at least five of which were closely related to AI capabilities, involving intelligent driving, smart cockpits, electric drive systems, electronic and electrical systems, smart manufacturing, flying cars, and robotics.

For instance, XPENG unveiled its fifth-generation smart cockpit system, XOS, which deeply integrates intelligent driving capabilities with next-generation smart cockpit applications, serving the era of human-vehicle co-driving. Additionally, XPENG self-developed the large language model, XGPT, integrating it with the voice system for user interaction

Beyond automobiles, XPENG has been exploring more possibilities for intelligent applications. In the future, XPENG AEROHT will develop flying cars along two paths: an integrated land-and-air flying car and a split-type flying vehicle. Additionly, XPENG’s self-developed biped intelligent robot will leverage technologies like XNGP, XEEA, XPower, XGPT and XOS, and explore applications in factory production and sales services.

By the end of January 2024, He Xiaopeng revealed that XPENG has over 3,000 personnel in its AI R&D and data team, with an annual investment of 3.5 billion RMB. In the eye of He Xiaopeng, amid a challenging macroeconomic environment, while most competitors are cutting expenses and hesitant to invest, this presents an opportunity for XPENG.