After about half a month of small-scale user testing, Chinese electric car company Xpeng Motors' memory parking feature has finally been opened to regular users.
Xpeng said Wednesday it has begun pushing version 2.6.0 of its Xmart OS to the P7, bringing Valet Parking Assist (VPA), the industry's first memory parking feature that doesn't require a parking lot modification, to owners.
According to Xpeng, the VPA feature is like a personal driver it provides to car owners to serve them in the parking lot, assisting them to drive their vehicles from the set starting point to the end point and park into the memorized space.
VPA can do automatic speed adjustment, automatic turning, automatic stopping to avoid pedestrians, avoiding vehicles as well as obstacles, the company said.
The feature can store up to 100 routes, with a maximum distance of 1,000 meters for individual routes.
It's worth noting that although the feature is already available to regular users, Xpeng still emphasizes that it's a beta feature, perhaps hoping to avoid unnecessary risks for it.
The company said the VPA feature is not fully autonomous and that drivers still need to observe their environment and be ready to take over the vehicle at any time during use.
Xpeng began pushing Xmart OS v2.6.0 to a small number of users on May 31, bringing the VPA feature with it. At that time, the public test was conducted by open recruitment and targeted invitation, and over 250 users were selected for the public test.
In addition to the VPA feature, the latest version of Xmart OS also includes several feature updates and upgrades.
Xpeng adds the ability to change lanes via voice control while in NGP, the first such feature in the industry.
The latest update also adds safety monitoring of the driver's status while the assisted driving system is working, alerting the driver when they are caught distracted or with their eyes closed.
It also brings intelligent high beam functionality to the vehicle, allowing it to automatically switch between low and high beams in scenarios such as meetings and darkness.
