Tesla FSD performs extremely well in Silicon Valley and on highways, achieving high scores and handling many road conditions smoothly, Xpeng CEO He Xiaopeng said.
He Xiaopeng, chairman and CEO of Xpeng (NYSE: XPEV), shared his impressions after experiencing FSD (Full Self-Driving) in the United States, giving a thumbs up to the Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) software.
"I experienced FSD version V12.3.6 in California over the past couple of days and also hailed a Waymo to experience it," Mr. He wrote on Weibo today.
"Overall, the Waymo performed better in the San Francisco urban area, while FSD performed extremely well in Silicon Valley and on highways, where it could achieve high scores and many road conditions were handled smoothly," he said.
Mr. He said that he has seen great improvements in FSD over the months and that his company will learn from FSD's great features and user experience parts.
"I believe 2025 will be the Chat GPT moment of fully self-driving!" Mr. He said.
"In the industry of autonomous driving, everyone is learning from each other quickly, iterating on themselves, and working together to improve the happiness of mobility for everyone," he added.
Mr. He also mentioned that he was asked which is better between FSD and Xpeng's XNGP (Xpeng navigation guided pilot), about which he will share in a video soon.
Xpeng is seen one of the strongest companies in China in terms of autonomous driving technology, and its XNGP is capable of point-to-point autonomous driving on highways and urban roads in hundreds of cities.
On June 20, Mr. He said in a Weibo post that he was visiting the US and stopped by to test the latest version of FSD and Waymo's assisted driving capabilities.
He said at the time that he had Tesla FSD version V12.3.6 and was hoping to borrow a Tesla vehicle with FSD V12.4.1.
After CnEVPost posted the article on June 20 and it was shared on X by @SawyerMerritt, Tesla CEO Elon Musk commented, "The Chinese automakers are by far the most competitive."
The Chinese automakers are by far the most competitive
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 20, 2024
Xpeng then asked Musk on X if there's any chance they could borrow a Tesla with FSD V12.4.1 in the near future.
"By the way, we'd LOVE to offer you a test drive of our XNGP ADAS when you're in China. Look forward to it," Xpeng said at the time.
Hey Elon, thanks for your comment. We are wondering if there's any chance we could borrow a Tesla with FSD V12.4.1 in the near future?
By the way, we'd LOVE to offer you a test drive of our XNGP ADAS when you're in China. Look forward to it.— XPENG (@XPengMotors) June 20, 2024
Mr. He's experience with FSD in the US comes at a time when the Tesla assisted driving software is about to be officially brought to China.
On May 30, Reuters reported that Tesla was preparing to register the FSD software with Chinese authorities for a planned launch of the feature this year.
On June 14, local media outlet SH Observer cited a Shanghai official as saying that Shanghai's Nanhui New Town was facilitating 10 Tesla vehicles to carry out a pilot of FSD.
All Tesla vehicles in China come with the free Basic Autopilot (BAP) software. In addition, Tesla also offers Enhanced Autopilot (EAP) and FSD software options in China, priced at RMB 32,000 ($4,410) and RMB 64,000 respectively.
With no algorithms training for Chinese road conditions, the EAP and FSD perform similarly to the free BAP, although additional features including Summoning are available.
($1 = RMB 7.2592)
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