- Xpeng plans to launch passenger-carrying demonstration operations for its robotaxis in the second half of this year.
- The newly established unit will coordinate product definition, project integration, R&D testing, and daily operations.
Xpeng officially established a new robotaxi business unit on Monday, marking a major push by the Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker in the field of autonomous driving.
The newly formed division will operate as a tier-one organization within the company, coordinating product definition, project integration, R&D testing, and daily operations, CnEVPost learned from a person familiar with the matter.
The division will collaborate and reuse resources across Xpeng's various units to accelerate the commercial rollout of its autonomous driving technology.
Xpeng's chairman and CEO, He Xiaopeng, said during the company's fourth-quarter 2025 earnings call last week that the company plans to officially launch passenger-carrying demonstration operations for its robotaxis in the second half of this year, aiming to validate the technology, customer experience, and business model.
Xpeng expects its robotaxis to achieve operations without safety operators next year, Mr. He added.
Over the past year, in order to achieve the leap from L2 to L4 autonomous driving and advance its global layout, Xpeng has adjusted its organizational structure.
The company restructured its autonomous driving technology architecture, R&D paradigm, and organizational system, establishing a new architecture driven primarily by AI and software.
In February of this year, Xpeng merged its autonomous driving center and smart cockpit center to officially form a new general intelligence center.
Mr. He previously mentioned that the era of autonomous driving is expected to arrive within 1 to 3 years, and the company plans to achieve full integration from L2 to L4 through its second-generation Vision-Language-Action (VLA 2.0) large model.
The Xpeng GX, a large six-seater SUV equipped with VLA 2.0, began normalized L4 autonomous driving road tests in February this year.
This highly anticipated flagship SUV model is expected to be officially launched in the second quarter of this year, which will further enrich the company's product matrix.
