Today, Xpeng held its AI Day 2025 at its new headquarters in Guangzhou. The automaker is positioning itself as an AI company with what it calls new “AI-defined applications” powered by the new Xpeng VLA 2.0 vision-centered model.
This model is going to power the autonomous features in Xpeng’s current EV lineup, the self-driving system in its newly announced robotaxis, humanoid robots, and “flying cars.”
At the event, CEO Xiaopeng He focused a lot on what he calls “Physical AI”, which he describes as the merging of AI into physical products, aka robots.
This is similar to how Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been describing Tesla’s cars as “robots on wheels,” and it is now also working on humanoid robots.
Xiaopeng has never hidden that he has drawn a lot of inspiration from Tesla. He even admitted having started Xpeng after Tesla “opened up” its patents.
Much like Tesla’s transition to an “AI and robotics company”, Xpeng has undertaken a similar transition in recent years, and it is now culminating in these new products announced today.
Xpeng’s new VLA operating system, Xpeng VLA 2.0, is the basis of all other products announced today.
Unlike traditional “Vision-Language-Action” architectures that translate visual inputs into language before generating actions, the new VLA uses a direct “Vision–Implicit Token–Action” path — removing the language bottleneck entirely. The result is an AI that can interpret and respond to physical reality faster and more intuitively, almost like human reflexes.
To run such a massive model on production cars, Xpeng reengineered its stack for its Turing AI chips, achieving real-time performance with 2,250 TOPS of compute on its vehicles with its “Ultra” level of driver assist — an order of magnitude more complex than typical automotive AI models.
Ultra is Xpeng’s top level of ADAS in consumer vehicles, but the company also announced a new level today: Robo:
Robo is going to be for robotaxis. Xpeng announced that it will launch 3 new purpose-built electric vehicles for robotaxi services next year.
There will be a 5-seater, a 6-seater, and a 7-seater. I’ve seen the prototypes driving around Xpeng’s headquarters, but for now, these are the only images that Xpeng is sharing:
These vehicles will feature four Turing AI chips delivering 3,000 TOPS and dual hardware for redundancy.
Like its autonomous driving systems for consumer vehicles, Xpeng is betting on a vision-only approach powered by its new VLA model.
Trial operation is expected to start in 2026.
Xpeng is expecting to work with partners to deploy its robotaxi, with the first one already announced: map and navigation company Amap.
When it comes to ADAS systems in its consumer vehicles, Xpeng sees its new VLA model expand capabilities quite a bit. They demoed their latest version of NGP (Navigation Guided Pilot), which is basically its Tesla FSD competitor.
I did a test ride on the latest software and was impressed. It appears to be the equivalent of Tesla’s FSD v14 with parking to parking capacity.
For both its robotaxis and NGP software, Xpeng has talked about “open sourcing” the systems. Although “open” and “open source” were used alternatively, it sounded more like they plan to license their technology to other companies.
Volkswagen has been announced as the first automaker to use Xpeng’s new VLA-backed autonomous driving system.
This is another area where you might think Xpeng is following Tesla, but it’s the other way around in this case.
Xpeng has been working on robots for 7 years. First, it started with quadruped robots and gradually evolved into several generations of humanoid robots.
Brian Gu, Xpeng’s vice chairman, noted that he believes the company began its humanoid effort ahead of Tesla.
The previous generation of its IRON robot has been around for a while, and it even gave us a tour of its HQ in Guangzhou today:
Today, Xpeng unveiled the latest generation of its IRON humanoid robot. A more advanced version with new humanoid bones, bionic muscles, and “full-coverage soft skin.”
The previous version was already impressive with relatively smooth walking that we were told was not pre-programmed nor tele-operated.
But the new generation already features much smoother walking and a more production-ready look.
Powered by three Turing AI chips (2,250 TOPS) and combining VLT + VLA + VLM cognitive models, IRON can see, move, and interact in real time — effectively performing tasks that require physical dexterity and conversation simultaneously.
It also features more dexterous hands with 22 additional degrees of freedom.
The new version of the IRON uses an all-solid-state battery, though they didn’t release any specs on capacity or autonomy.
When it comes to commercialization, Xpeng is being way more conservative than competitors like Tesla and 1X, who are both predicting mass production and commercialization in 2026.
Xpeng also aims to start mass production next year, but it only plans to use the robots in its own commercial operations, primarily as guides, receptionists, and even salespeople at its locations.
Xiaopeng said the company tried to operate IRON in its own manufacturing operations for a year, doing what it believed was the easiest human task to replace: tightening screws with a drill on the assembly line.
However, Xpeng concluded that it wouldn’t be efficient at scale due to the robot not performing as well as employees, especially on a cost basis, due to high repair and replacement costs.
Humanoid robots are way more complex and currently not as sturdy and efficient as industrial robots, which can lead to high repair costs.
Xiaopeng believes that humanoid robots will one day be widely used in manufacturing operations and in homes for household chores, but he thinks this is further down the road than the competition predicts.
He was reluctant to give a clear timeline, but when pressed, he said likely 3-5 years for industrial applications and 5-10 years to be safe and useful in homes at scale.
Xpeng says it will ensure its robots follow the three laws of robotics and add a fourth law to ensure they also respect human privacy.
Next year, you should expect to see IRON in Xpeng stores across the world.
Xpeng is launching an IRON SDK for developers to help develop more applications. Baosteel, a giant steel production company based in China, will be an early partner.
Finally, the latest “intelligent AI-powered” product that Xpeng highlighted at its AI Day is its latest lineup of “flying cars” under its ARIDGE brand.
To be fair, “flying car” is a term used loosely.
As the CEO pointed out himself, they are more accurately described as low-altitude eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft.
The main new aircraft unveiled is the A868, an electric-hybrid, full-tilt rotorcraft. I saw the first prototype at Xpeng’s HQ today:
The A868 uses an aerospace-grade hybrid system based on Xpeng’s “Kunpeng Super Range” platform, promising 500 km of range, 360 km/h top speed, and a six-seat layout targeting business travel.
It is currently entering its flight test phase, according to Xiaopeng.
Closer to production is Xpeng’s ‘Land Aircraft Carrier’ – a modular electric-hybrid 6×6 vehicle that carries a small eVTOL.
The aircraft is much smaller than the A868 as it literally fits inside a van, and it also has a much shorter range of 20 to 30 km. It is reportedly equipped with full safety redundancy and six dual duct propellers.
The Xpeng Land Aircraft Carrier is entering pre-production, with over 7,000 global preorders and the first mass-production unit already off the line as of November 3.
The company’s ARIDGE execs are required to accumulate a minimum of 5,000 km of flight in the aircraft – a policy seemingly meant to create confidence in the product.
Xiaopeng also says that he will personally fly in the first production unit.
While individuals can buy the Land Aircraft Carrier with the manned drone, the company is also currently deploying “flying camps” across China to offer “tourism tours” with the electric aircraft. The first of such camp is in Dunjuang. Xpeng is aiming for 200 flying camps by the end of 2026.
There are a lot of products that Xpeng unveiled that made me raise an eyebrow, especially with the “flying car” stuff, but I have to give credit where credit is due. There’s some real and impressive technology at this company.
The comparisons with Tesla are obvious, but at least, Xpeng is being way more realistic about timelines and capabilities and not selling you on products that don’t exist yet.
For example, Xpeng is investing heavily in humanoid robots, but it doesn’t see near-term commercialization scenarios for home or factory robots.
Nonetheless, it is designing the robot for mass production, and it aims to reach that goal by the end of 2026.
The goal is that by then, AI capabilities will improve enough to make IRON useful in applications beyond the tour-guide/salesman applications it is first aiming for. The SDK should help with that.
But Xiaopeng is not out there claiming that it is a “multi-trillion-dollar opportunity” and that it will start producing millions of robots within the next 2 years.
He did say that he believes humanoid robots are a big opportunity that AI is enabling through new “real-world physical models”, but there’s still a lot of work to be done.
During a press conference that followed the AI Day presentation, Xiaopeng and Gu were repeatedly ask to differentiate Xpeng and Tesla.
They admitted there are many similarities between the two companies, but noted that Xpeng is more open than Tesla, partly out of necessity given its smaller scale.
When asked specifically about why Xpeng’s valuation was so much lower than Tesla even when adjusted for scale, Dr Gu was not shy about pointing that Tesla’s valuation was based on potentially premature commercialization announcements while Xpeng prefers to wait until it has the technology before announcing commercialization.
The “flying cars” might be the exception, but I think that’s fair for the rest. Xpeng is not exactly announcing the commercialization of its humanoid robots beyond use in its own stores, and based on the demonstration we saw from a previous-generation IRON, it looks very plausible.
Unlike demonstrations from competitors such as Tesla’s Optimus and 1X’s Neo, Xpeng claimed that its IRON tour guide demo was not pre-programmed (beyond the product speeches) and was not tele-operated.
The IRON was navigating the showroom in real time using the same neural networks as its vehicles.
Speaking of its vehicles, its NGP system, a Tesla FSD competitor, is offered standard and is clearly marketed as a level 2 driver assistance system that requires driver attention at all times.
Xpeng also has an advanced driver monitoring system to prevent driver abuse, which has been a problem with Tesla’s FSD and Autopilot – leading to the automaker currently being flooded with wrongful death lawsuits regarding crashes involving its systems.
In contrast with Tesla, Xpeng is more conservative, not promising or prematurely selling additional capabilities to owners before they are ready.
That said, Xpeng clearly has ambitions to reach level 4 autonomous driving in consumer vehicles, and it looks like it is neck-in-neck with Tesla FSD in performance right now. At least in China.
And unlike Tesla, which has been trying to license its FSD technology to other automakers for years, Xpeng already has a taker in VW.
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