XPeng Responds to Hunan Car Crash Involving Automatic Driving Functions

An owner of a XPeng car in the Chinese province of Hunan has claimed that after activating automatic driving functions on a national highway for more than 10 kilometers, the car collided with another vehicle that had rolled over and was stationary on the road, without triggering any alarm or response from the XPeng vehicle. The driver allegedly stepped on the brakes urgently, but the car did not respond. In addition, the driving recorder provided by the owner showed that the vehicle had accelerated just before the crash.

Regarding the incident, XPeng responded that it was caused by the driver’s failure to observe the environment in front of the vehicle and not taking control in time.

XPeng issued an open letter, saying the company attaches great importance to the accident, in which the driver collided with the crashed vehicle when using Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and Lane Centering Control (LCC) functions.

After investigation, it was determined that on March 13, the above-mentioned car owner drove a XPeng P7 and collided with a rolled over vehicle parked horizontally in the expressway, although no people were injured in the accident. After the accident, through background collision monitoring, the car company’s service staff contacted the customer to inquire about the situation and provide assistance.

XPeng initially judged that the car owner had failed to observe the environment in front of the vehicle and take over the vehicle in time when using the ACC + LCC function. After investigation and judgment by the local traffic police department, this conclusion is also in line with the above situation.

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After the accident, XPeng provided the driver with a courtesy car free of charge. It also said it will actively communicate with the owner about follow-up maintenance matters to help repair his car as soon as possible.

In fact, this is not the first time that XPeng has been involved in the hidden dangers of its driving assistance system. In 2021, an owner of an XPeng Motors vehicle reported that his P7 model had a rear-end collision with a truck when the Navigation Guided Pilot (NGP) system was turned on. Passengers in the car were not endangered, but the driver was diagnosed with a concussion after being sent to hospital.