Chinese EV maker Xpeng Motors announced on Friday that it has made the public beta version of Xmart OS, version 2.5.0, available to some P7 owners on Thursday evening, opening up Navigation Guided Pilot (NGP), the star product of XPILOT 3.0 autonomous driving assistance system, to users for the first time.
Xpeng claims that this OTA upgrade is the most powerful and feature-packed push in Xpeng's history.
At the beginning of this month, Xpeng held an NGP Beta event and invited some media and investors to experience the software.
Deutsche Bank analyst Edison Yu provided the following observations about NGP beta test drives:
The user interface is very modern and streamlined with real-time 3D HD mapping combined with 360-degree visual perception showing roads, bridges, buildings, and traffic cones (essentially gets rid of the need to look in the rearview mirror);
Natural human-like lane changing, overtaking, and merging;
More refined compared to engineering version and anticipates speed adjustments much better than Tesla NoA;
NGP will try to maximize efficiency by choosing the fastest lane for different segments of the journey where Tesla often just stays on the fastest/left lane;
Smooth automatic switching between NGP and lower level ADAS features when necessary (ACC or LCC)；
Voice reminders are timely before changing lanes or when there is no HD map coverage or bad weather coming up(manual takeover is required);
Works in tunnels unlike Tesla NoA/FSD due to HD mapping and high precision positioning system;
Yu said Xpeng's stock could gather some upward momentum from investors driven by the positive sentiment around XPILOT 3.0 and its upcoming new sedan with LiDAR, according to Deutsche Bank analysts led by Edison Yu in a note to investors on Thursday.
It becomes clear XPILOT 3.0 will be the best consumer autonomy system on the Chinese market for likely at least the rest of the year, Yu's team said, adding the excitement is also building for the unveiling of its third model.
The latest OTA also brought enhanced active safety features to some P7 users and optimize upgrades in full-scene voice and intelligent music cockpit.
