XPeng Sets Up Autonomous Driving Subsidiary for Robotaxis
According to business inquiry platform Qichacha on Monday, Guangzhou Pengxu Autonomous Driving Technology Co., Ltd. was established on February 14, 2022. The legal representative of the company is Henry Xia, the co-founder and president of Xpeng Motors. The new firm has a registered capital of 10 million yuan ($1.58 million) and is 100% held by Xpeng Motors.
Earlier, He Xiaopeng, CEO of Xpeng Motors, also publicly revealed that the company will launch a robotaxi business in 2022, and will first put it into trial operation in Guangzhou to speed up the commercialization of its intelligent driving technology.
Therefore, the establishment of this new company likely shows that Xpeng Motors has set up an autonomous driving firm to develop and realize L4 autonomous driving technologies such as robotaxis.
Pengxu Autonomous Driving Technology is registered in Huangpu District, Guangzhou, which is a popular locale for the commercialization of robotaxis in China. Many well-known domestic autonomous driving companies such as Baidu Apollo and WeRide have all chosen Huangpu District to carry out their robotaxi business.
He Xiaopeng previously pointed out that XPeng‘s robotaxi business will adopt its own cars, so it has more advantages in terms of cost. In addition, He said that the monthly test mileage of each car used by XPeng will be about 8,000 to 10,000 kilometers.
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Compared with other autonomous driving companies, Xpeng Motors chose to develop L2-level autonomous driving technology for mass production vehicles first. A large number of actual road and vehicle data are generated by users of this technology, which constantly feeds back the development of L4 autonomous driving technology, including the robotaxi business. The L4 automatic driving technology will also be gradually applied to XPeng‘s vehicles, realizing a virtuous circle of developing automatic driving technology.