China's Automaker, Xpeng, Expands Tesla FSD Equivalent To International Owners

Aiming for the global market, Xpeng, Tesla's Chinese rival, intends to highlight its intelligent driving software.

In an event this week, the Guangzhou-based electric vehicle startup announced that it will begin developing its highway-specific Navigation Guided Pilot (NGP) for global users in 2024. Meanwhile, development of its next-generation, all-purpose XNGP feature will begin in 2025 for international users.

Xiaopeng He, the company's founder and CEO, stated at the event, "We look forward to enabling overseas users to access Xpeng's autonomous driving that is already available in China."

Similar to Tesla's semi-autonomous driving system Full-Self Driving (FSD), NGP and its upgraded version XNGP are available. All of Xpeng's advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) features, such as self-parking and highway and urban driving, are collectively marketed under the catch-all moniker XNGP.

After XNGP eliminated such pre-computed data, Xpeng vehicles can now drive anywhere by using sensors like lidars and radars that detect real-time road conditions instead of relying on high-definition maps, which were historically used for navigation.

Xpeng, which was founded in 2014, left China for the first time in late 2021, traveling first to Europe. Subsequently, it has dispatched its electric SUVs and sports sedans to Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden; Germany, France, and the United Kingdom are scheduled to receive them in 2024. Along with a swarm of other Chinese electric vehicle companies heading to the Middle East, Xpeng started selling in Israel last year.

How well Xpeng's map-free driver-assist system does in these uncharted areas is still up to speculation.